[1] McCartney started making up stories about Grandude, who he conceived of "as a kind of retired hippie having adventures with his grandchildren".

[3] The group "ride horses with a cowboy in the desert, face an army of crabs on a tropical beach and dodge an avalanche while having a picnic up a mountain".

[1] Reviewing the book in The Guardian, Kitty Empire wrote that the reader would "struggle to detect the imprimatur of one of the 20th-century's creative greats here" feeling that as with other celebrity writers of children's books, "The famous seem to miss the fact that intelligence is not wasted on the young" and contrasts Hey Grandude!

's plot with the "phenomenally sophisticated" 'con trick' that the mouse plays on the Gruffalo in Julia Donaldson's eponymous picture book.

The book concludes with everyone safely tucked up in bed...But every gleeful scenario ends badly, with Grandude and the chillers fleeing when some avalanche or stampede invariably kiboshes the thrills.