Kids

Happy Grandparents Day!

Happy Grandparents Day!
Hooray for grandparents! They're our lifelines, our pinch hitters, our source of inspiration, and the needed yin to our "no, you can't have another cookie" yang. So in honor of Grandparents Day today, we thought we'd showcase some of our favorite affordable grandparents gifts; every one of these comes in under $20. (Not that they wouldn't be happy with a simple phone call from the grandkids, of course.)

You Can Call Me Hoppa! is a terrific book to help you figure out the perfect grandparent name for the baby. Also a cool way to announce a pregnancy - if you can manage to keep the news under wraps that long.

Animoto is like slideshow 2.0 - they make it as easy as can be to create a custom video out of your own photos to email to grandparents. And now they've added video editing capabilities too. It's free for 30 second videos, or for a $30 membership for the whole year, you can make as many videos as you want, as long as you want. (And psst, you can do it right now, on the fly.)

The Between You and Me series of books are made just for grandmas and grandpas - they fill in the blanks and help create a permanent keepsake of their experiences for future generations.

Photobooks from Shutterfly are guaranteed tear-jerkers but not because they're a fortune - they start at just $11 and the quality is terrific. Splurge on the hard-cover. Trust us. -Liz

Find more grandparent gifts from our past years' holiday gift guide and mother's day gift guide

More in KidsView all picks →

shannon hale princess in black book and author

Q&A with children’s book author Shannon Hale

Shannon Hale is the bestselling author behind The Princess in Black series. It's a favorite early chapter book series for kids ages 5–8 and boys love it as much as girls do. Her newest book, Princess in Black and the Trick or Treating Trouble, comes out just in time for Halloween. We talked with her about it as part of our Q&A author series and asked about a few of her favorite things too.

Explore Build-a-Bear

Some Not-So-Spooky Fun this Halloween

How can Build-A-Bear be used for Halloween costumes? Let kids create a spooky Build-A-Bear sidekick to incorporate into their costume, which can help the costume be enjoyed beyond Halloween.

Q&A with children's author Sophie Blackall

Q&A with children's author Sophie Blackall

Cool Mom Picks readers, we are so excited to launch a new series for you. We are obsessed book lovers over here at the CMP headquarters, and we have a particular soft spot for children's books (even though we're moving our kids into coll…