Written by Juniper Fitzgerald + Illustrated by Elise Peterson
Tackles: Diversity in mother hood, sex work.
Age Range: 2-8 years
Genre: Picture Book
I want to hug this book. I don’t think I’ve ever liked a children’s book so much, ever. This book covers so much, I could fill up another book with just my thoughts on this one. This book is about how mamas love their babies: the jobs they work to provide for them, the ways they use their bodies to feed and take care of them, the uniforms they wear, and the lengths that mothers will go to in order to provide for their little ones.
The diversity in this book is first represented by the pictures and descriptions of the mamas. Mamas in wheelchairs, mamas of color, skinny and chubby mamas, mamas in sex work, CEO mamas, and every mama in between. The pictures are extremely unique and the whole book is sort of collage/magazine clip art situation with lots of children’s type drawings (what a concise description, I know). The art style depicts these strong women perfectly.
The book also depicts sex workers, saying “Some uniforms even have special shoes. Some mamas dance all night long in special shoes. Its hard work! Mamas who dance, just like mamas who clean and think and farm and fly use their whole bodies to care for their babies. Mamas who dance, just like other mamas, have bodies that love their babies. ” Upon first read of this book I was surprised that this was included- and then I thought, why shouldn’t it be? There are so many sex workers all over the United States, even all over the world, and many of them have children, so why is it something that has never been acknowledged or written about? The book takes such a neutral tone with this, not over explaining and adding this job in with others like its normal- and it is! I commend this book for being so inclusive.
This book also makes sure to be inclusive even when its not directly talking about a different type of mama. For example, one page says “Some mamas care for their babies inside their own bodies,” normalizing the idea that not all mothers carried their baby, and acknowledging situations like adoption or surrogacy among others.
Overall, this book is extremely unique and uses bright and eye catching pictures to depict many different types of strong and passionate mothers that dedicate themselves to raising their babies. It uses a casual and cheerful tone to applaud and normalize all of these mamas unique situations. I love this book, and I hope you do, too.
10 out of 10 babies
Buy it here.
Learning To Teach 