Grandparenting Books: The Short List

If you were amazed by the new dimensions grandparenting created in your life, this is the book for you. The 30 essays contained in Wondrous Child depict a variety of grandparenting journeys, each described with eloquence and honesty. It's not a book about the nuts-and-bolts of being a grandparent, but a book about the heart and brains and guts of the experience and how it ends up being entirely magical, in spite of the difficulties that may be encountered.

Anne Lamott may be an acquired taste, but millions of readers have found her musings on motherhood and spirituality to their taste. Some Assembly Required chronicles the first year of Lamott's grandson Jax and her first year as a grandmother. It's a sequel of sorts to 1993's Operating Instructions, about the first year of her son Sam and her year as an overwhelmed and insecure but very loving mother. Parts of both books are laugh-out-loud funny. Other parts are merely poignant and oh-so-true.

A great choice for anyone struggling with choosing a grandparent name, this book contains around three hundred grandparent names. The main message is that grandparents should not feel restricted to the traditional names, but instead should feel free to choose or develop a name that is uniquely their own. The author even suggests that grandparents who aren't happy with their chosen name should change them.

This book is a welcome break from those tomes which treat grandparenting with either deadly seriousness or cloying sentimentality, or both. The anecdotes will make you laugh out loud, but there is substance here as well. New grandmothers will find this little book invaluable, and those who are not new to grandparenting will enjoy it as well.

The Grandparents' Association, a UK group, is responsible for this volume, which is well-organized, readable and interesting. Each chapter begins with a preview and ends with a checklist that serves as a kind of summary. In between is a lot of good advice, as well as little snippets of real-life stories that support the points being made in the book.

Subtitled "Great Stuff to do With Your Grandkids," this is a compilation of stories from real-life grandmothers about what they do with their grandchildren. These are not traditional grandmothers. Yes, there is a chapter on knitting, but there is also one on skiing, one on using email and another on taking your grandchild to a demonstration, and I don't mean a cooking demonstration!

The product of a collaboration between a mother-in-law, a daughter-in-law and several hundred contributors, the book predictably has something for everyone. Packed full of good advice and creative activities, this is a book to be read, not merely browsed, and it should be read with highlighter or index tabs in hand, so that you can find favorite parts again.

If there's anything better than being a grandmother, it's sharing the experience with wise and witty women friends. The writers who have collaborated on this volume will soon feel like friends. Subtitled "27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother," this book celebrates the joys of grandmothering without skipping over the stresses.

You won't want to take your eyes off the lovely photographs in this book long enough to read the stories. When you finally do, you'll be glad you did. You'll enjoy reading about the famous and not-so-famous and their grandparenting philosophies. You'll learn that there are lots of ways to be a grandmother. Some of them involve roping cows or discussing theology rather than baking cookies.

There are advice books for grandparents. There are books of activities for grandparents to do with grandchildren. There are first-person grandparenting accounts. The Grandparents Handbook is three or more books in one, as it fits all of these descriptions and throws in a few extra flourishes as well.

A grandparent's most fervent wish is for healthy grandchildren. Most grandparents get their wish. This book is written for those who don't, those who have a grandchild with special needs. Charlotte E. Thompson, M.D., offers advice about coping with the diagnosis and exploring medical and legal resources, as well as providing actual care for the child.

All aspects of the grandparenting experience--the scariness, the occasional unpleasant experiences and the ecstasies--are detailed in this volume. Even better, most essays are followed by "Tips and Tricks" to help grandparents in similar situations. You'll be sure to find a lot to relate to in this collection.