The year in grandparents
The best stories from my site and beyond in 2019.
The woman with 10,000 grandkids
Many kids in India are growing up far from their grandparents, so a grandma in Bangalore is using her smartphone to tell them bedtime stories.
What do your grandkids call you?
I’ve been asking grandparents around the country what they’re called and why. Here are a few of their stories.
The very best books about the very best season
For kids, summer means freedom. These books beautifully capture that.
A writer, her granddaughters, and the magic of Sicily
Francine Prose returns to an island she fell in love with years ago.
How to cook like an Italian grandma
You’ll need some olive oil, a good butcher, and this recipe for Neapolitan ragù.
The best picture books about spring
I spent the final weeks of winter reading all the picture books I could find about spring. Here are my favorites. They’re simple, they’re deep, and they’re as gorgeous as the season.
How Miss Rumphius made the world more beautiful
In this extraordinary picture book, a girl’s grandfather inspires her to live well and do good.
What Eleanor Roosevelt gave her granddaughter
After her husband died in 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt traveled the world as a diplomat, speaker, and activist. But she was never too busy for her granddaughter.
“I think I know my grandfather now”
As a boy, Allen Say barely knew his grandpa. As a man, he came to understand him. That’s why he created Grandfather’s Journey, a picture book for which he won the Caldecott Medal in 1994.
“Her mind was as sharp as ever”
Would her grandma remember her? Jane Kim, 41, wasn’t sure. It had been 23 years since she’d last visited her in Korea, and she was nearly 100 years old.
How to interview your grandparents
“Imagine it: During the holidays, instead of using gadgets to ignore each other, we might use them as an excuse to look each other in the eye and listen.”
Margaret Mead learned everything from her grandma
The legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead was homeschooled for most of her childhood by her grandmother, an iconoclast who rejected rote instruction as “stultifying” and emphasized learning by doing instead.
A grandmother and her granddaughter graduate side by side
Cathy Williams, 62, and her granddaughter, Chelsea Washington, both earned bachelor’s degrees this spring from the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee.
How can parents help children and their grandparents connect?
Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin has some ideas.