A poignant meditation on the bonds between mothers and daughters—and the inescapable effects of time—from the author of A Wrinkle in Time. In the second memoir of her Crosswicks Journals, Madeleine L’Engle chronicles a season of extremes. Four generations of family have gathered at Crosswicks, her Connecticut farmhouse, to care for L’Engle’s ninety-year-old mother. As summer days fade to sleepless nights, her mother’s health rapidly declines and her once astute mind slips into senility. With poignant honesty, L’Engle describes the gifts and graces, as well as the painful emotional cost, of caring for the one who once cared for you. As she spends her days with a mother who barely resembles the competent and vigorous woman who bore and raised her, L’Engle delves into her memories, reflecting on the lives of the strong women in her family’s history. Evoking both personal experiences and universal themes, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother takes an unflinching look at diminishment and death, all the while celebrating the wonder of life. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Madeleine L’Engle including rare images from the author’s estate.

Great-Grandmother puts all the treasured experiences of her life into her apron and takes them with her when she dies.

Residents of a Sudanese village rejoice when a traditional water storage method is replaced by modern technology, but Fatima's grandmother knows there is no substitute for the reliability of the baobab tree.

The New York Times Bestseller From one of the country’s most recognizable journalists, Lesley Stahl of CBS's 60 Minutes: How becoming a grandmother transforms a woman’s life. After four decades as a reporter, Lesley Stahl’s most vivid and transformative experience of her life was not covering the White House, interviewing heads of state, or researching stories at 60 Minutes. It was becoming a grandmother. She was hit with a jolt of joy so intense and unexpected, she wanted to “investigate” it—as though it were a news flash. And so, using her 60 Minutes skills, she explored how grandmothering changes a woman’s life, interviewing friends like Whoopi Goldberg, colleagues like Diane Sawyer (and grandfathers, including Tom Brokaw), as well as the proverbial woman next door. Along with these personal accounts, Stahl speaks with scientists and doctors about physiological changes that occur in women when they have grandchildren; anthropologists about why there are grandmothers, in evolutionary terms; and psychiatrists about the therapeutic effects of grandchildren on both grandmothers and grandfathers. Throughout Becoming Grandma, Stahl shares stories about her own life with granddaughters Jordan and Chloe, about how her relationship with her daughter, Taylor, has changed, and about how being a grandfather has affected her husband, Aaron. In an era when baby boomers are becoming grandparents in droves and when young parents need all the help they can get raising their children, Stahl’s book is a timely and affecting read that redefines a cherished relationship.

My grandmother was a very strict woman. She did not care that how she said things sounded like she was yelling. She would tell you to say Madam Viper or Lady Viper. She was very formal, strict, and fancy. She would dress in clothes from the 1800s and her favorite was the Gibson Girl. And she did not like the punk and or rock clothes Id wear. I was never into all the fancy girly-girl clothes. What I mean is the dresses. I dislike dresses! I mean even as a little kid. I didnt even play dress up and have tea parties. Sorry Madam, but I dont know what Ive done this time, I yelled back as I turned around to get away. Ive missed you Abigail, Madam Viper said. Oh thats a big fat lie! I shouted. Abigail Ferrari Viper, Dont you dare shout at me! Madam Viper yelled. No! Im done listening to all of your strict stuff, because you never cared once that I was alive you didnt! Tiffany and Helen never had to try for their accustoms from you! But I did and not once did you accept me. I yelled in tears. Abigail please listen to me, Madam Viper begged. NO GRANDMOTHER! I yelled crying as I ran back into the school.

From Hello!Lucky, the creators of My Mom Is Magical! and My Dad Is Amazing!, comes this joyful tribute to everything that makes grandmothers great! Is your grandma more fabulous than a flock of flamingos? More magical than a million mermaids? More adventurous than a pack of pirates? Celebrate all the things that make Grandma great with this bright, humor-filled board book!

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize The real-life Guinness heiress offers an inside look at the lives of eccentric aristocrats in this “masterful . . . macabre fairy-tale and blackly humorous family portrait” (Literary Hub). This macabre, mordantly funny, partly auto-biographical novel reveals the gothic craziness behind the scenes in the great houses of the aristocracy, as witnessed through the unsparing eyes of an orphaned teenage girl. Great Granny Webster herself is a fabulous monster, the chilliest of matriarchs, presiding with steely self-regard over a landscape of ruined lives. Great Granny Webster is Caroline Blackwood’s masterpiece. Heiress to the Guinness fortune, Blackwood was celebrated as a great beauty and dazzling raconteur long before she made her name as a strikingly original writer.