Linda Grekin, founder of Grandma's Book Club, reads "Gorilla, Gorilla" with her 17-month-old granddaughter Abbey Russell in her Ann Arbor home.

Lon Horwedel | AnnArbor.com

Here’s an idea for holiday shopping that combines children’s love of reading with family members’ desire to connect with those children.

Grandma’s Book Club is a new business and Web site launched by Linda Grekin, a 66-year-old grandmother and former librarian, educator and entrepreneur who was looking for a way to better connect with her faraway granddaughter.

“It’s pretty much anybody who wants to have a relationship with a young child,” she says.  

The service allows grandmothers or other relatives to pick from six picture books each for kindergartners and first- and second-graders. The books are accompanied by activity books, authored by Grekin, which are designed to encourage interaction with children through related activities in language arts, math, science and social studies.

For example, for “Goose’s Story,” in which the little girl protagonist tries to imagine what it would feel like to have a lame leg by standing on one leg, readers are asked how long they can stand on one leg and call their grandma’s to ask how long they could do it. 

And in “The Teddy Bear,” a story of how a boy’s teddy bear is found by a homeless man turns into an opportunity to talk about people’s need for someone to love.

Members also get access to the club Web site, where they can access National Geographic videos, music, art and other information and media meant to enrich concepts found in the books.

“I learned very early that kids could be curious,” said Grekin, who taught English at Belleville High School and later helped develop curriculum as librarian at the Hillel Day School in Farmington Hills. “I found out that even the littlest kids were interested in real-world issues and had interesting opinions about what could be done.”

Grekin began organizing the business more than a year ago and originally stumbled on the idea, she said, while trying to figure out ways to connect with her first granddaughter, who lives in Indiana.

So far, the company is selling picture and accompanying activity books individually or in six-book packages at Mudpuddles in Kerrytown and at Nicola’s Books in the Westgate Shopping Center. She’s also working to set up an online shopping cart to make sales easier.

But Grekin, who is backing the business with her own money and ordering books from Nicola’s and Overstock.com, acknowledges she faces unanswered questions over how to market and advertise the business and manage inventory. Marketing so far has consisted of word-of-mouth buzz and appearances before groups and at her local synagogue; Grekin also plans to set up a table during a Kerrytown open house on Nov. 15.

“I love to do it, so it’s really fun for me,” Grekin says. “I’m a deep believer of kids reading books and getting together to talk about things.”

• Contact Sven Gustafson at sventg123 (at) gmail (dot) com, or follow him at twitter.com/sveng.