A bighearted book of wisdom, wit, and insight, celebrating the love and joy of being a grandmother.

"When nanas die they leave grandchildren and perhaps a trace memory of being coddled, kissed, attended to, and loved, of being chased across the lawn or rocked in the middle of the night or taken seriously." p. 144

Grandma thank you for all of the above and then some. I feel your love still in such a large and magnificent way and I miss you more than I know how to put into words. ( )

Anna Quindlen and I are roughly the same age. I have been a grandparent almost 10 years now, and she became one a few years ago. This book is a series of essays on the world of grandparenting. Her observations are right on. One of her more prominent themes is that we, as grandparents, are relegated to back-up roles, and need to understand, in a sense, our place. I do agree with her. Over 10 years, I have learned to wait before offering opinions, and that our main role is to support our kids and love those grandbabies. She comes at it from the perspective of the paternal grandmother - my experience is as a maternal grandmother. So I do not feel quite the need to hesitate in communicating. I think it's inevitable that the communication flow between mother and daughter is more natural than mother and daughter-in-law due to the embedded culture of each family. In any case, her thoughts ring true for me. It appears that she, like me, lives close enough to her grandchild to be a part of his everyday life, an incredible gift. At the end of the book, grandchild #2 is on the way. I now have 6. What a blessing. ( )

Having become a G'ma myself in the last several years, it was interesting to read Quindlen's thoughts on how that changes us and how we should / would / could fulfill this heart-stretching role. ( )

Anna Quindlen describes the emotional reactions to becoming a grandparent so well and also describes the mistakes that one may make. If I had read this book two months earlier, I might have avoided making one of mine!!

This book was recommended to me by a friend. I share one particular aspect of grandparenting with the author. I too have a grandson, who is half-Chinese and will be bilingual. However, my grandson lives in Beijing, so we have to work to stay connected. It was a blessing for us that the family came to visit for a month this summer and I had some good in person time.

This book would be good for any new grandparent. ( )