The most recommended mother books

There are two companion board books, one for little ones with two mommies and the other for little ones with two daddies, which are the perfect way for babies and toddlers to see themselves and their families in a book, just doing the ordinary things that parents do with their young children. I love how the love shines through in each illustration.

I normally gravitate toward fiction, so this one came out of left field for me.

Abigail Tucker, a correspondent for Smithsonian magazine, dives deep into the science of what makes a mother. I think I enjoyed this book so much because it almost reads like fiction between its accessible (and surprisingly funny!) tone and the stranger-than-fiction revelations about what happens to a woman’s brain when she becomes a mom.

It's 1969, Phyllis is married to a kind man, with two children and a large house in suburban London. Her domestic world is not far removed from a dutiful 50s housewife’s. Then a much younger man, dashing, selfish, and a family friend, kisses her in a dark garden, and her life explodes. She abandons her family and moves to a shabby flat in Ladbroke Grove. A new world opens to her – she meets people of colour, artists, activists, drinkers, and idealists. She experiences sexual freedom and romantic love. Phyllis’s teenage daughter joins her in her new life, and mother and daughter must work out a different kind of relationship. I found myself feeling furious with Phyllis at the same time as emphasising with her.

I love the way this book peels back the layers of a mother’s choices and the scrutiny she faces for them.

Hillary Jules, the mother at the center of this story, does things some might find unforgivable. And yet we see, through both her and the woman who becomes a surrogate mother figure to one of her children, how we cannot know the full depth of another’s story.

This book reminded me how dangerous it can be to judge from the outside with phrases like “I would never.” Those judgments came much easier before I became a mother myself.

I read this book in graduate school at the University of Washington, where Robinson had also been a graduate student. What struck me so forcefully was how the father is killed off in a train wreck at the beginning of the novel to usher in the exploration of the female life of generations of women.

No work before made me see how a male character and tradition can marginalize female life. This novel encouraged me to focus on my mother and sisters in my own writing.

I loved this book. The second nine months is the true story of Vicki Glembocki's journey into those first few months after childbirth. Although the story is a memoir, Glembocki writes it so well that it reads like a novel—a novel you won't put down until you are finished. From beginning to end, Glembocki bravely bares her soul for the new mom's benefit and cleverly manages to hit all the "new mom" topics through her personal experience. From breastfeeding, to newborn crying, to changes in relationships, to new mom bonding, to finding other new mom friends, to back to work issues, Glembocki manages to cover them all with wit and candor. I found her new mom tale "spot on accurate." It is so exciting that truth is finally coming out. Take advantage of the gift this author has created, New Moms, and read about her experience. Moms will find that… show more.

This book, justly honored with the Pulitzer Prize, surprised me with its formal range and intensity of experience.

Trethewey is celebrated as a chronicler of our collective history, but I was far more taken with the poems of personal history—and, more specifically, personal loss. The poems that examine the absence left by her mother’s untimely death are, to me, the defining poems of the book. These often exemplify her gift for presenting the most telling detail or selecting the word that will resonate on the broadest level.

Let me hone in on one poem, “Myth,” a recasting of the Orpheus story. What astonished me about this poem was the formal structure. It consists of two sections of nine lines, each arranged in terza rima stanzas. The second section rewrites the first half—in reverse! The effect is to convey the experience of descending into the darkness of the underworld and then… show more.

Owen Meany is born abnormally short-statured to parents who don’t love him, though he finds a best friend who appreciates his spunk.

Not even his best friend, though, can explain why Owen believes he is destined to become a hero, going through crazy lengths to prepare. The crazier his actions became, though, I found myself simultaneously hoping for and dreading the day he would have to use his over-practiced skills. The way this intricate story unfolds still blows my mind, following Owen and his friend John from childhood to adulthood.

I’ll never stop recommending this book.

This is my favorite The Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling! Heather Dixon includes all twelve princesses, named after various plants, and gives them distinct enough personalities that not only can you keep them straight, you care about each one. This story follows Azalea, the eldest of the twelve sisters, and the mysterious Keeper, who invites the princesses to dance every night in his silver forest. But the Keeper likes to keep things, and can Azalea bear to pay the cost? Eerie and gorgeous, romantic and masterful!

Straub is a master, but this title is often overlooked. It’s compact, completely engaging, and features some of the best dread-inducing moments I’ve ever read in a horror novel. His writing is a masterclass in dread, and as a writer I return to it often. Much as Tremblay uses the gimmick of reality TV in A Head Full of Ghosts to horrifying effect, Straub employs email in a creepy and sinister fashion.