This story is a gentle way to talk about the tough topic of death. Later that night, he sees a shooting star, and his mom tells him it might be a kiss from Nana Upstairs. He doesn't understand that she is never coming back.

However, Nana Upstairs passes away, and Tommy does not understand it at first, he runs upstairs, and she is not in her bed. Then everyone naps, and then they brush each other's hair. Together they sit in their chairs and eat their candies. He goes upstairs to see Nana Upstairs, and she always tells him to get candy from the sewing bin. Nana Downstairs is always cooking in front of the stove. Every Sunday, he visits his Nana's, and they have a whole routine. Nana downstairs is his grandma, and she is a caretaker for Nana Upstairs, who is his great-grandma.

Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs is about Tommy's grandma and great-grandma. It is a marvelous example of the height to which such a simple story can soar, and how an author's honest emotion can fill our hearts and minds even when few words are used. Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs belongs in rarified air, among the best picture books that I have ever read.

No one who reads this book will ever forget the older Tommy looking out the window and seeing the shooting star, and the last thought that crosses his mind as the book draws to its close. The whole experience of knowing Nana Upstairs is made a blessing to us just as it was for young Tomie, and I am amazed by how perfectly he is able to make it all come so vividly alive.Īs the hands of time erode the older hierarchy of Tommy's family-including his two Nanas-the story becomes very poignantly emotional, defying the spare number of words to gracefully weave itself around the reader's heart. The anecdote about Nana Upstairs having to be tied to a chair to keep from falling out and Tommy asking Nana Downstairs to tie him in a chair, too, is one of the best things that I have ever read. This book steps so delicately upon the walkway of Tomie's youth that its construction is equal to that of the magnificent spiderweb spun by nature's surest architect. I feel as if I know Tom, and Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs, and all the rest of Tomie's wonderful family as well as if they were my kin, too, and that is truly a special feeling that is hard to fully put into words. Speaking for myself in all sincerity, his picture-book family histories have welcomed me into the life he has led as warmly as if I were a part of the family. There is nothing in literature like the books that Tomie dePaola has written about his family when he was growing up.

Nana upstairs nana downstairs book