MY TWO GRANDMOTHERS

Parents (and grandfathers, if any) stay in the background as a child gaily introduces her Grammy Lane and Bubbe Silver. Elizabeth customarily visits both in turn: Grammy Lane lives on a farm, loves snowy weather, and lets Elizabeth drive the tractor; Bubbe Silver heads south at the first sign of winter, takes Elizabeth to her club for golf and lunch, and feeds her gefilte fish with extra fiery horseradish. During the holiday season, Elizabeth helps Bubbe Silver make latkes and sings songs in Hebrew, then repairs to Grammy Lane’s for pie and carols. Later, deciding that it’s her turn to start a family tradition, Elizabeth invites both to a special party—for grandmas only. In restrained, simply drawn watercolors, Hayashi (Bunny Bungalow, 1999) gives the grandmas different lifestyles but the same warmth and air of quiet dignity. The characters here are generic, unlike, for instance, those in Emily McCully’s Grandmas at the Lake (1990), but young children growing up in less idyllic mixed-heritage families might take heart from seeing the ease with which Elizabeth moves easily from one milieu to the other. (Picture book. 6-8)