For our current focus on children and their grandparents, we have invited authors and illustrators who have written children’s books that center on that special realtionship to share with us some of their own personal memories of their grandparents. Over the next couple of weeks we will be posting these pieces here on the blog – and I can promise you, we’re all in for a real treat.
Our first piece comes from author Andrea Cheng, who says, “Many of my books have to do with the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren (Grandfather Counts, Goldfish and Chrysanthemums, Shanghai Messenger, Only One Year, The Key Collection). Most of these stories in some way reflect the relationship I had with my grandparents, particularly with my paternal grandmother.”
One of my favorites of Andrea’s books is Where the Steps Were, her novel in verse about a class of inner-city 3rd graders, which also references grandparents. Do watch Andrea’s short but inspiring video documentary, which shares what “a group of 3rd graders can do with just one book.” Andrea’s latest book is the newly released Where Do You Stay? (Boyd’s Mill Press). Read our 2008 interview with Andreahere, and visit her website here.
Memories of My GrandparentsMy family immigrated to the US from Hungary in installments. My immediate family came first, and then my grandparents, and later my aunt, uncle, and cousin. When I was very small, we all lived together. Later my grandparents got their own apartment just behind our house. I loved going to visit them and was allowed to walk there by myself. Grandma spoiled me with my favorite palacsintas (walnut and sugar filled crepes) She let me eat them before dinner and never seemed worried that I would spoil my appetite.
Sometimes I was allowed to spend the night with my grandparents. My grandmother fixed me a special bed on the floor that I called a nest, and we played there for at least an hour before bed. She sang me Hungarian nursery rhymes, which I still know, and let me play with her plastic pop together beads. She taught me to sew clothes for my dolls. My grandfather told me stories until finally I fell asleep.
When i was about eight, my grandparents moved from Cincinnati to Chicago to join my aunt. I was heartbroken. The feelings described in The Key Collection come from this early separation.
My husband’s parents immigrated to the US from China in 1949. Unfortunately he was never able to meet any of his grandparents. Luckily my grandmother, who lived until age 95, very happily took on the role of being my husband’s adopted grandmother. Grandma knew very little about her ancestry, but she looked Asian (perhaps Mongolian since the Mongols came through Hungary centuries ago) so many people assumed she was my husband’s grandmother, not mine!
Andrea Cheng
Thank you, Andrea.
I am including this post in this week’s Poetry Friday, which is hosted by Reading Tub’s Family bookshelf – I’ll add the link later as I’m having some difficulties conecting right now…
I was not quite as creative as Sharon and Mary: I didn’t make my miniature furniture. Mostly I used Playmobil dolls and furniture, and an old metal dollhouse of my mother’s that was at least twice too big to be proper scale for the dolls I was using. That made it perfect, as I was not one to be satisfied with a one-family house: I turned that old metal dollhouse into a castle or a Jedi academy, and expanded onto the nearby floor—castles need medieval villages and academies need workshops and classrooms. They never actually got to learn, (or search for the holy grail), though; it was all about the endless arranging and rearranging, and imagining what they could do—for me, actually putting the dolls through the motions would have limited the possibilities.
White Americans tend to raise children in nuclear families—just parents and kids—but in many cultures and many immigrant groups, extended families are deeply involved. 
