I’m happy to present this guest post by Nancy Fox:

I was 16 when I met a skinny guy named Woody in suburban New York.

We ate pizza together.

Later, when I got back home in Detroit, he wrote letters to me. Letters and letters and more letters.

In one of them, he invited me to visit him at his Ivy League-type college. I went.

We fell in love. We got married.

But I didn’t know he’d get old, stop being skinny and still stay lovingly by my side for a lifetime (while I, of course, stayed absolutely just as young and every bit as skinny as I’d been my teens).

Along the way, he became a grandpa who told fantastic stories to our granddaughter about a crocodile family and their pet dog. Yes, anthropomorphic crocodiles (including, because of Hannah’s preferences at the time, one who was a princess).

Woody let Hannah name (and rename and rename) the characters.

Oh, I forgot — I’d become the grandma (a skinny, young one, of course). And, wearing my ever-youthful granny glasses, I often peeked at Woody’s computer (which even now has a Velcro seat that keeps him attached there so he can write and write, more and more and more).

I watched week after week as my imaginative granddaughter, Hannah, hung over his shoulder, dangling off the chair, mesmerized by whatever column or review he was writing. Just having fun being there.

Months later, she was still hanging there when he asked if she’d like to write a story with him.

“Awesome,” she said, grinning from ear to ear beneath her long streaky-blonde, eight-year-old hair.

“Great,” said Woody. “Let’s write something we know about, like maybe a grandfather and his granddaughter.”

“Okay,” said Hannah, “but the grandpa has to be a sorcerer and the kid has to be a fairy. And her best friend has to be a fairy, too.”

So, they began, two co-writers only 70 years apart.

When they finished, Woody said, “Okay, now we write ‘The end.’” But Hannah said, “Oh, no, we’re not done. We need more.”

Three parts later, “Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates,” a fantasy, was complete — a full-fledged book rather than a short story.

And quite a while later, after Joe Marciniak added whimsical, breathtaking illustrations and a couple of people had ironed out some technological kinks, “Grampy…” was ready for the public.

Watching my husband and granddaughter collaborate, laugh, imagine, laugh, play, laugh and create together filled my heart and brain with granny goodies. I couldn’t ask for anything more, except maybe seeing a published book other grandparents and grandchildren can enjoy, share and derive inspiration from — inspiration, perhaps, to collaborate on their book together.

You’ll love “Grampy…” Almost as much I did.

And as I still do, more and more every time I re-read it. It’s definitely a fun, feel-good read — especially mid-pandemic.

Especially for the young and young-at-heart. Skinny or not.