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Book Picks: Mother's Day

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BOOK PICKS: MOTHER'S DAY

By: Shannon Kaiser   |   May 5, 2022


Celebrate Mother’s Day with these wonderful books to share with your kids or kick your feet up and escape into one of the great recommendations for you!

BOOKS FOR LITTLE LEARNERS

Mother’s Day is such a special time and a great opportunity to connect and snuggle with your little one. These Mother’s Day books celebrate moms of all kinds and are a great way to discuss the special relationship that moms, grandmothers, aunts, step-moms, and other important women play in children’s lives.



THE NIGHT BEFORE MOTHER’S DAY

By Natasha Wing // Illustrated by Amy Wummer


It's the night before Mother's Day, and Dad and the kids are determined to show Mom just how much they love her. They whip up a cake from scratch, and offer a special coupon for a day at the spa, right in their own kitchen! Kids and moms will love reading this sweet story aloud together for a fun way to celebrate Mother's Day.


Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE.


 

THE MOMMY BOOK

By Todd Parr


Some mommies sing you songs. Some mommies read you stories. All mommies want you to be who you are! With his trademark childlike art, Todd Parr celebrates all different kinds of mothers. Whether mommies work far away or at home, cook or order pizza, they are all lots of fun and filled with love.
For the first time in board book format, this is the perfect book for celebrating mommies all year round.


Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE

MOMMY’S KHIMAR

By Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow // Illustrated by Ebony Glenn

A young girl plays dress-up with her mother’s headscarves, feeling her mother’s love with every one she tries on. Charming and vibrant illustrations showcase the beauty of the diverse and welcoming community in this portrait of a young Muslim American girl’s life.


Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE


MOMMY, MAMA AND ME

By Leslea Newman // Illustrated by Carol Thompson

Rhythmic text and illustrations with universal appeal show a toddler spending the day with its mommies. From hide-and-seek to dress-up, then bath time and a kiss goodnight, there's no limit to what a loving family can do together.

Share the loving bond between same-sex parents and their children in this heartwarming story of family.


Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE.


LOVE YOU FOREVER

By Robert Mucsch // Illustrated by Sheila McGraw

The book Love You Forever is perhaps the classic tear-jerker picture book. A mom sings a simple song to her son as he grows. “I’ll love you forever; I’ll like you for always, as long as you’re living, my baby you’ll be.” The mother sings to her son through each stage of his life until she can’t sing it anymore. Then when it’s his turn to sing to his own daughter, we see the parental love come full circle. 


Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE.


THE BEST MOTHER

By C. M. Surrisi // Illustrated by Diane Goode

When Maxine wakes up on the wrong side of the bed one morning, she wonders if the problem might be her mother. What if she could try out a new mom who doesn’t make her brush her teeth or comb her hair? Enlisting Mom to help her with the search, Maxine interviews various prospects to be her new mother at the park, the toy store and the zoo. Unfortunately, these other mothers present a host of new problems and concerns. Maybe her “old mother” was the best mother of all? For every child who’s ever wondered if the grass is greener, The Best Mother affirms that there’s nothing better than your own mother’s love.


Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE.

RAMONA AND HER MOTHER

By Beverly Cleary

Ramona feels this is the awkward age - too little to stay by herself after school when her mother is at work, but too big to enjoy playing with pesty Willa Jean at her sitter's house. These days, all Ramona really wants is to twitch her nose and be her mother's little rabbit like she used to be. Can't she be her mother's little girl forever? 
* The Ramona series is a favorite for elementary aged kids


Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE.





EVERY MOM DESERVES A GOOD BOOK TOO!

 

Taking care of little people is hard. Escaping into a good book at the end of the day is one of my favorite ways to relax. Here are a few good books that I have enjoyed that deal with mothers and relationships with their children. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I have. 



CRYING IN H MART

By Michelle Zauner

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE.

 

TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM

By Yaa Gyasi


Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. 
Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief–a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.


Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE

APPLES NEVER FALL

By Liane Moriarty

Apples Never Fall follows the four Delaney siblings after the disappearance of their mother, Joy Delaney. The police soon identify their father, Stan, as a possible person of interest in her case.

As they try to unravel the mystery of what happened to her or where she went, the four siblings are forced to confront truths about their relationships with each other, with their significant others, with their parents and about their parents' marriage.


Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE


LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE

By Celeste Ng

This riveting novel traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned—from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren—an enigmatic artist and single mother—who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants; all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town—and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides.  Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood—and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.


Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE.


THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS

By Jessamine Chan

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough. 

Until Frida has a very bad day. 

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida: the ones who check their phones, let their children get injured on the playground, who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.

Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed, that she can learn to be good.


Purchase the book through Amazon Smile HERE.



AMAZON SMILE

Help raise money for SMMC philanthropy projects by selecting Southern Marin Mothers’ Club as your AmazonSmile beneficiary. AmazonSmile is an easy way to give back and support the organization with your Amazon purchases. Register your Amazon account HERE.

 



Shannon Kaiser Shannon Kaiser lives in Tiburon with her husband, Rolf, and three kids who are in 4th grade, 1st grade and Montessori. She spends her days chauffeuring her kids around town, folding laundry and listening to audiobooks. You can reach Shannon at smmcshannon@gmail.com.
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