Picture books about grandparents from many cultures

The best picture books about grandparents show a specific grandmother or grandfather: her kitchen, his garden, the words they use, the stories they bring from somewhere else. Children whose grandparent is called nai nai, lola, halmoni, sitti or bubbe deserve to hear that word in a book, and every child benefits from meeting grandparents unlike their own. Below are picture books from many cultures (not every culture, honestly, but a wide spread), each verified in a public library catalog, with what each one is about and the age it suits best. After the list there are ideas for using the books with your own grandparents.

For picture books about abuela and abuelo by Latino authors, we have a separate guide: books about abuela and abuelo.

One book with many grandmothers

Dumplings for Lili by Melissa Iwai. Lili makes baos with her Nai Nai, who has taught her all the secrets, but they run out of cabbage, so Lili goes up to Babcia's apartment, and Babcia needs potatoes for her pierogi. Lili ends up racing up and down the building helping all the grandmothers borrow ingredients for different dumplings: Jamaican beef patties, Italian ravioli, Lebanese fatayer and more. Ages 3 to 7. If you can only pick one book for a classroom or a mixed family, pick this one.

Grandmothers

Book	Author	Who the grandmother is	Ages
When Lola Visits	Michelle Sterling	Summer starts when her lola, her grandmother from the Philippines, arrives for her annual visit	3 to 7
Giving Thanks With Halmoni	Kathleen Choi	Su-Jin's halmoni, grandmother in Korean, gets ready for Chuseok with Su-Jin and her friends	4 to 8
Sitti's Secrets	Naomi Shihab Nye	A girl visits her grandmother in a Palestinian village on the West Bank	4 to 8
Nana Akua Goes to School	Tricia Elam Walker	Zura worries how classmates will react to her Ghanaian Nana's tattoos on Grandparents Day, and Nana shows why they are meaningful	4 to 8
Becca & Bubbe's Bucket List	Laura Gehl	Becca and her bubbe finish each other's summer bucket lists, with a glossary of Yiddish and Hebrew words	3 to 7
The Keeping Quilt	Patricia Polacco	A homemade quilt ties together four generations of an immigrant Jewish family	4 to 8
Bisa's Carnaval	Joana Pastro	In Olinda, Brazil, Clara's great-grandmother makes the family's Carnaval costumes but is too old to follow the parade, so Clara brings it to her	4 to 8
Last Stop on Market Street	Matt de la Peña	CJ rides the bus across town with his grandmother and learns to see the beauty in everyday things	3 to 7
Grandma's Purse	Vanessa Brantley-Newton	When Grandma Mimi visits, her granddaughter cannot wait to see the treasures in her purse	2 to 5

Grandma's Purse is the easiest for toddlers: short, funny and full of things to point at. Nana Akua Goes to School and Sitti's Secrets are better for kids old enough to ask "why?"

Grandfathers

Book	Author	Who the grandfather is	Ages
Drawn Together	Minh Lê	A boy and his grandfather cross a language and cultural barrier using their shared love of art	4 to 8
Grandpa Grumps	Katrina Moore	When Daisy's grandfather, her Yeh-Yeh, visits from China, she tries everything to make him smile. Includes a glossary and a fried rice recipe	3 to 7
Ojiichan's Gift	Chieri Uegaki	A girl finds a way to give the gift of a traditional Japanese garden back to her grandfather and accept a hard change	5 to 8

Drawn Together is the one to give a child who cannot talk easily with a grandparent. It does not pretend the language gap is small; it shows another way across it.

A community of relatives

Jingle Dancer by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Jenna, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, borrows jingles from the dresses of friends and relatives so she can dance at the powwow, and the book includes a note about the jingle dance tradition. Ages 4 to 8. It is a good pick for showing a whole circle of relatives helping one child.

How to use these books with your own grandparents

• Read one that matches, then one that does not. A mirror and a window. A child with a lola reads When Lola Visits, then Sitti's Secrets, and notices what is the same: the cooking, the visit, the goodbye.
• Learn their word. Ask your child's grandparent what they called their own grandmother. Write both words on a page and let your child decorate it.
• Interview them. StoryCorps has a free list of great questions, including a grandparents section with questions like "Where did you grow up?" and "How did you and grandma/grandpa meet?" Pick two and record the answers.
• Draw the thing only she does. After Dumplings for Lili, ask your child to draw Grandma making her best dish. After Drawn Together, sit down and draw something together with Grandpa.
• Plan for distance. If grandparents live far away, read the same book on a video call, each holding a copy. Our guide to gifts for long-distance grandparents has more ideas.

If a grandparent has died, the books above can be hard or comforting, depending on the child. Our guide to helping kids through the death of a grandparent has books written for that.

A book where the grandparent is their own

The grandparent kids care most about is their own. My two keep coming back to the pages that show them. You can make that page yourself from a photo, or put a few into a homemade book; our guide to gifts for grandparents from grandkids shows how.

We are also making a set of family heritage coloring storybooks, with a nonna, a nani, a lolo, a babcia, a teta, a yiayia, an oma and a dadi among the grandparents, each researched and reviewed before any art is drawn. None are on sale yet. Today, Colorkin can turn your family photos, grandparents included, into a coloring storybook, drafted with AI illustration tools and finished by a person.

For holidays and heritage across many cultures, see our family and heritage guides.

Questions parents ask