You Made Me a Mother

by Laurenne Sala, Robin Preiss Glasser (Illustrator)

Overview

A picture book for expectant mothers and already-mothers everywhere, perfect as a shower gift or for Mother's Day.

I felt you. You were a pea. Then a lemon. Then an eggplant...

In this beautiful celebration of motherhood, the universal message of unconditional love for a child shines through.

Laurenne Sala's heartwarming text, accompanied by New York Times bestselling artist Robin Preiss Glasser's charming illustrations, creates a sweet and intimate look at the powerful bond between mother and child from pregnancy to birth and beyond.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062358868
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/08/2016
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	178,373
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.25(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Laurenne Sala, author of You Made Me a Mother, is a storyteller, poet, and writer of everything from television commercials to jokes for the stage to the occasional viral video. When she isn’t writing her own essays and making people cry, Laurenne leads workshops that help others write their very personal stories. She loves blueberries, her cat named Cheddar, riding her bike along the beach, and being a mom. Laurenne lives with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles, where she likes to look at the ocean and wonder what is on the other side.

Robin Preiss Glasser has illustrated many acclaimed picture books, including the bestselling Fancy Nancy series, Lambslide, Escape Goat, and Grand Jeté and Me: A Christmas Holiday Book for Kids. She won the Children’s Choice Award for Best Illustrator of the Year for Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet. Robin actually wore tiaras and tutus when she danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet. Now she happily spends her days in jeans, drawing. Robin and her family live in Southern California.

Editorial Reviews

03/14/2016
Sala debuts with an ode to motherhood adapted from text she wrote for a video ad for a baby carrier company. The book retains much of the casual, lightly irreverent language of the source material (“I felt you,” it begins. “You were a pea. Then a lemon. Then an eggplant”), though comments about parenting’s more frustrating moments have been softened slightly. In her customarily breezy ink-and-watercolor artwork, Fancy Nancy illustrator Glasser focuses on the relationship between one mother and child—a willowy blond woman and her son—which sharpens the visual narrative as the boy grows into an active, independent child, but also feels at odds with the universality of the text. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Kelly Sonnack, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Illustrator’s agent: Faith Hamlin, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Motherhood has rarely been summed up so succinctly or so well.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

From the Publisher

★ 2016-03-16
With just the right touches of humor to balance the sentiment, Sala neatly encapsulates motherhood. Addressing her child directly, the blonde, white mother recounts how she felt the baby growing, read books, listened to advice, and ate spinach, but she still wasn't sure she was ready. "Could you tell I was nervous? // … // But then you were here. / Ten toes. Eight pounds. // Love. / Big fat love." She does all the things a mother does—rock, feed, hold—but there are still times she gets nervous and doesn't have all the answers. "I realized that I would spend my life doing things to make you happy. // And that would make me happy." And the final two spreads not only capture the very meaning of parenthood, but may even cause many to choke up: after raining her love down on her child, "we would walk, hand in hand. // Until you let go." Glasser's ink-and-watercolor illustrations complement the text. Soft colors and white backgrounds keep the focus on the emotions so plainly conveyed. This pair don't do anything unusual—kissing baby's toes, turning the child upside down, reading a book, dancing and twirling in the rain, walking on the beach—but their bond makes everything magic. Father (seen in only one crib-assembly picture), mother, and child are white, and the child is androgynous. Motherhood has rarely been summed up so succinctly or so well. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews