Lynnae Whiting Allred

Lynnae W. Allred is a story and play enthusiast and the author of "Piggyback Rides and Slippery Slides: How to Have Fun Raising First-rate Children." In addition, she has written or co-written several journals aimed at helping families successfully collect and document family stories. These include the "Storybook" journal series (Grandma's Storybook: Wit, Wisdom, and Words of Advice, Grandpa's Storybook, Dad's Storybook, Mom's Storybook) and "Line Upon Line: an LDS Young Woman's Q & A Journal."

Most recently, she has launched the "Let's Take a Closer Look" series. It's an educational series for children connected to Lynnae's website, Playdatebox.com. The focus of Playdatebox.com is providing grandparents with free resources and tools to help them build strong, playful connections with their grandchildren.

Playing together and sharing family stories allows parents, grandparents, and families to create and maintain powerful, satisfying family relationships. These form the bedrock of a healthy, happy family, and successful society.

In addition to her full-time career as a mother and grandmother, she has also owned an eCommerce website and has written content for several blogs and small business publications. She has also worked as a nonfiction acquisitions editor for an independent publishing company.

She loves family vacations, good music, good books, collecting video oral histories of family and friends, skiing, long walks at sunset, homemade food, and working in the yard and garden (way better than exercising on the treadmill). Her goal in life is to learn to make a perfect loaf of sourdough bread.

When Lynnae, or "Grandma Nae" as her favorite people call her, became a grandmother, she started writing children’s books for her own grandchildren because they ask her all kinds of questions she doesn’t have answers for: How come spiders don’t stick to their webs but bugs do? Why are oranges orange? Where did Grandpa hide all of the chocolate chips? And since she was already a Grandma, it seemed like a good time to start learning all about the things she had forgotten to learn when she was a kid.

Grandma Nae loves flowers (especially the ones that attract cool bugs), eating good food (especially oranges), and long walks in the mountains. You can come and play along with her at Playdatebox.com. To learn more about the things that make Lynnae curious, visit www.LynnaeAllred.com.