6 Standout Picture Books About Kids and Their Grandparents
Partnered with:
The Grandparent Effect
This winter, I read all the picture books I could find about children and their grandparents. These six were my favorites. These books aren’t just stunningly written and illustrated; they also get the new American family.
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The Hello, Goodbye Window
A little girl’s visits with her grandparents revolve around their roomy kitchen, where the three of them cook, eat, color, and pretend to see dinosaurs out the window.
“Mommy and Daddy pick me up after work. I’m glad because I know we’re going home, but it makes me sad too because I have to leave Nanna and Poppy. You can be happy and sad at the same time, you know. It just happens that way sometimes.”
Nanna is black and Poppy is white, but the author doesn’t make a big deal of that. The big deal is the attention they both lavish on their granddaughter.
Great for: Pre-K (3–5)Preorder from: -
The Matchbox Diary
A century ago, when most Americans only lived into their 60s, great-grandparents were scarce.
Not anymore.
In this book, a kindergartner who lives out West visits her great-grandfather on the East Coast.
He shows her dozens of treasures that he stashed in matchboxes as a little boy, including an olive pit from his hometown in Italy, a hairpin he found when he and his family were on the boat to America, and a ticket to a baseball game in Philadelphia.
“That’s my favorite box,” the man tells his great-granddaughter. “My first baseball game. I didn’t understand it, why the men were running. But I was in heaven not to be working and to sit by my father.”
The last page of the book shows the girl returning home in an airplane. In her lap is the “diary” she’s just started: an empty candy box that, so far, holds a Lego piece and a stewardess’s pin.
Great for: Growing Reader (6–8)Preorder from: -
Coming on Home Soon
Available from:These days, when parents deploy abroad or travel for business, children often stay with their grandparents. That’s why this poignant book, which takes place during World War II, will resonate with so many families.
“Mama’s hands are warm and soft.
When she put her Sunday dress into the satchel, I held my breath.
Tried hard not to cry.
Ada Ruth, she said. They’re hiring colored women in Chicago since all the men are off fighting in the war.
Mama folded another dress and put it in the bag.
I’m gonna head on up there.
Then she pulled me close up to her, pressed her face against mine.
Make some money I can send on home to you."
Ada Ruth is left in the care of her grandmother, who’s stern and reserved compared to Mama. But over time, Ada Ruth and Grandma form a tender bond.
The last page of the book shows Mama trudging through the snow toward the house, just a few footsteps from a reunion with her daughter and her mother.
Great for: Growing Reader (6–8)Also available from: -
Nana in the City
When a little boy from a small town spends the night at his grandmother’s apartment in New York City, he’s intimidated by the crowds, the noise, and the homeless people.
“I love my nana, but I don’t love the city,” he narrates. “The city is filled with scary things.”
So Nana stays up late knitting a fancy red cape to make her grandson feel like a superhero, and the next day, he wears it out on the town.
Like many grandparents nowadays, Nana is urbane. She takes the boy to hear some street musicians and watch a break-dancer. She coaxes him to pet a pack of dogs being led by a dog-walker.
And when grandmother and grandson pass a food cart, she buys some hot pretzels and hands them to a homeless man.
“The city is busy, the city is loud, and it is the absolute perfect place for a nana to live,” the boy concludes. “And for me to visit!”
Great for: Pre-K (3–5), Growing Reader (6–8)Preorder from: -
Lucky Pennies and Hot Chocolate
“My favorite person in the world is coming for a visit,” the book begins. “I have a whole bunch of new knock-knock jokes for him.”
The narrator then describes all the fun things he and his “favorite person” will do together:
“I can’t wait to show him that huge hole they’ve dug down the street! I like to watch big machines moving the earth, doing their jobs.”
“I invented a new pancake recipe to try out. Super-scrumptious banana-raisin-marshmallow-surprise pancakes. I think he’ll like them.”
Only on the last page will kids realize that the narrator isn’t the boy — it’s his exuberant grandpa.
Age doesn’t define us, the author seems to be saying. Love does.
Great for: Pre-K (3–5)Preorder from: -
Bigmama’s
For millions of kids, summertime means visits with grandparents. They’ll relate to this autobiographical book, in which the author, who grew up in New Jersey, recalls his annual stays at his grandparents’ farm in Cottondale, Fla., in the 1940s and ‘50s.
Every year, when the author, his mother, and his siblings arrived, “Bigmama and Bigpapa were waiting for us on the porch. There were hugs and kisses and ‘Oh my, how you’ve grown!’ and ‘How tall you are … is this you?’”
“Then off with our shoes and socks. We wouldn’t need them much in the next few weeks.”
Later, at dinnertime: “Everybody sitting around the table that filled the room — Bigmama, Bigpapa, Uncle Slank, our cousins from down the road, and all of us. We talked about what we did last year. We talked about what we were going to do this year. We talked so much we hardly had time to eat.”
“The night was jet black except for millions of stars. We could hardly sleep thinking about things to come.”
The last page shows a grown man lying in bed at sunset. An urban skyline is visible from the window.
“Some nights even now, I think that I might wake up in the morning and be at Bigmama’s with the whole summer ahead of me.”
Great for: Pre-K (3–5), Growing Reader (6–8)Preorder from:
