ALA Booklist (Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 CST 2000)

Like Numeroff and Munsinger's What Mommies Do Best/What Daddies Do Best (1998), this is an upside-down book. Read it one way and it celebrates the joyful relationship between children and their grandmas. Turn it over and upside down, and it's about the fun children have with their grandpas. The words are the same for both: one simple line per page about ordinary things. Grandmas (or Grandpas) can play hide-and-seek, take a nap with you, or take you for a walk. Munsinger's watercolor-and-ink animal characters spread themselves comfortably in universal human situations. On one page a grandpa pig teaches his grandchild to dance to the radio. Opposite, a grandpa elephant and his grandchild enjoy a picnic on a rooftop. It's not always easy to show blissful happiness without sentimentality, but this book has a combination of gleeful comedy and cuddly warmth that toddlers and their grandparents will love to share again and again.

Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 2001)

Read the book one way and find out what grandmas do best, then turn the book upside down and discover what grandpas do. Both grandmas and grandpas "can play hide-and-seek, make you a hat, and take you for a walk," but Munsinger's charming animal grandparents show the different ways one can do the same activities. In the end, they all shower their grandchildren with love.

Kirkus Reviews

Numeroff's grandmas and grandpas are lots of fun to be with in this charming flip-flop book—grandmas on one side, grandpas on the other. What grandmas do best are the same activities that grandpas do best but they do them in different ways. Grandpa's picnic is a box of pizza on a city park bench; Grandma's is in a bucolic country setting. Grandma plays cards; Grandpa plays miniature golf. They both play hide and seek, make you a hat, take you for a walk, paint, show their photographs, and teach you to dance, among other things. The point of the book, of course, is that grandparents are important because they give you lots of love. Munsinger's ( Tacky and the Emperor , p. 1041, etc.) watercolor and ink drawings are wonderfully funny and warm. Her animal grandparents and grandchildren come in every size and shape. Some are quite fashionable; others are frumpy. Some are older looking, some younger. Fox, mice, elephants, raccoons and dogs dressed and acting just like people enlarge and enhance the text with their amusing representation of loving adults and children enjoying each other's company. Grandparents (and their offspring) will love this one. (Picture book. 4-8)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

This companion to the immensely likable What Mommies Do Best/ What Daddies Do Best is another two-in-one book: after finishing """"What Grandmas Do Best,"""" readers can flip the book over to find """"What Grandpas Do Best."""" Again, Numeroff's straightforward text is identical for both segments (both grandmas and grandpas can """"play hide-and-seek, make you a hat, and take you for a walk""""). The fun lies in Munsinger's magnificently anthropomorphized animals, and the way each grandparent puts his or her spin on the words: Grandma Cat knits her grandkitten a fetching snow hat, while Grandpa Guinea Pig fashions a chapeau out of newspapers, tape and glue. Perhaps because her lead characters are senior citizens, this book is more subdued in tone than its predecessor; Numeroff seems not to have mined her considerable imagination as deeply for comic contrasts (both expected and unexpected) between male and female grandparents. Still, every spread radiates with the gentle and abiding affection that connects the generations. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)

School Library Journal

PreS-Wonderful for quiet lap-sit storytimes with small children, this two-for-one picture book is split in half to tell the same simple story twice. With just a few words per page, the text communicates big concepts succinctly through lively ink-and-watercolor illustrations that differentiate one kind of fun from another. "Grandpas can paint with you" presents young readers with a seriously artistic, oil-and-easel grandfather pig, for example. But a visit with a grandmother gerbil on the other side of the book demonstrates another way to paint altogether. These warm, cheerful vignettes are sure to resonate with children. Many kinds of loving families appear throughout each 17-page story; elephants, dogs, monkeys, and frogs all share quality time with their loving relatives. Children will enjoy noticing the different ways to dance, have a picnic, or make a hat, and while they may find turning the book around to locate them a little awkward, it's a small price to pay for this charming introduction to the special times shared with grandparents.-Catherine T. Quattlebaum, DeKalb County Public Library, Atlanta, GA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.