The Granny Diaries: An Opinionated How-To Guide

by Adair Lara and Patricia Storms

This delightful guide gives new grandmas clear direction on how to navigate foreign territory. Celebrated columnist Adair Lara advises on how to choose a decent name (Oopsie? Boopsie?). She outlines how to give advice without getting a Dr. Sears guide chucked at the head. She offers wise counsel on how to stay on the parents' good side (hint: don't say anything, ever). Hilarious in its blunt truisms, The Granny Diaries steers around the shoals of...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811857328
• ISBN13: 9780811857321
• Release Date: December 2007
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

I wish I'd had this book 5 years ago!

I wish Adair Lara had written her book when I first became a grandma. I would have felt so much better about all the mistakes I've made over the past five years. And I've made every mistake in the book - Lara's book! I just finished her book with a smile on my face and a huge sense of relief in my heart. All those feelings I've had about my relationship with my daughter are completely "normal" - at least according to Lara! And that emotional roller coaster my daughter and I ride every time I visit is just all part of the process of being and becoming a grandmother. What I enjoyed about Lara's book was her wry irreverence that captured so many of my own experiences - especially her perspective as the maternal grandmother. Lara captures images of new moms with the accuracy of a digital camera. I read many passages aloud to my husband because they were so hysterically familiar. For example, "You thought a hormone-crazed teenage daughter was touchy? Try a nervous new mother trying desperately to prove that she knows what she's doing. Anything you say will be wrong. When you say I want to help, she hears, You're not doing it the right way." Another mistake I made was to rush past my daughter at the front door to embrace my granddaughter. Lara reminds us that we must cultivate the relationship with our children because they are "indispensable in the production of these magical beings." Such great insight and advice!

Every New Grandmother;s book

This book is a MUST for all new grannies and also a fantastic book for not new grannies.I laughed my head off. I have two granddaughters, one who is 3 months old, and it gave me a lot of insight and a lot of laughs. It is worth every penny. BUY IT!! It is even helpful and hilarious if you have friends with new babies. It is a different world than it was when we had babies in the 70's.

a book for grandmas that won't induce a diabetic coma!

I am a grandmother, but most books directed at me are sickly sweet and thus either are unreadable or make me feel as if I should immnediately don an apron and make some cookies and start patting someone short on the head. This book actually makes it cool to be a grandmother. It's very funny, and the advice could mean your daughter will start taking your calls again

Essential for any grandparent

Adair Lara's new book, about bravely facing up to grandparenthood, would appeal to any reader who is curious about entering this new phase of life. How do you deal with the fact that your own child, whom you still think of as your little girl or boy, is about to become a parent? Devoted readers of Adair's columns in the San Francisco Chronicle will expect her comments to be thoughtful, poignant and humorous, and they will not be disappointed. She writes with an intimate, personal style, an objective point of view, and a sense of humor that is subtle and bewitching. Don't be surprised if you read this book in one sitting, even if you are not a grandparent; in fact, it's a great read for anyone, of any age. If you don't know Adair Lara's writing, you are missing something priceless. - Grandpa in California

Don't miss this! Think family saved from disfunction with humor!

This little book has way more to offer than is represented by the illustrations. It looks really cute , but it is far more profound than that. Beneath the ever delirious humor the author is famous for in her column in the SF Chronicle are life lessons .This is an introduction to the minefield of current grand-parenting. It is told sensitively and through personal experience by a NEW AGE grandmother who hikes, rides bikes , wears jeans and has a career. This is an introduction to a new era and still touches thoughtfully on the miracle of a child with a new baby to love and how that child's parents learn to see their child as a grown up. Multiple sets of grandparents learn how they can fit into that new family. Adair doesn't miss a thing in this gem. It's required reading for moms, dads and grandparents. GREAT mother's day gift.