You Be Mommy

In a celebration of mothers, this story beautifully captures their mammoth efforts and subsequent exhaustion in an upbeat and utterly sweet way. Opening immediately with the story’s premise “Mommy’s too tired to be Mommy tonight. / Can you be Mommy and hold me tight?” the (suggestively single) mother playfully entreats her young daughter to swap her roles for the evening, flipping back and forth between listing the things she has already accomplished today (working at the computer store, shepherding children to extracurriculars, providing dinner and cleaning up) and the one thing yet to be accomplished—the bedtime routine. While not all the rhymes are perfect or super original, the flow of the text doesn’t distract from the book’s tone or sweetness. The featured mom is soft and cozy—perfect for mom hugs—and not idealistically slender, and her facial expressions throughout are utterly relatable, reminding readers that mothers have their own emotions as well as boundless love. The pink-hued color palette is both cozy and hip (much like the mom herself), and the foliage (both potted and creeping in onto the pages unexplainably) adds to the sense of simultaneous idealism and realism the story represents.