A while ago I was tagged in a game of sevens by Sandra who compiles the gorgeous and stylish Pass the Parcel. Sandra featured the seven books that inspired her as a mother and given that We ♥ Books is all about books and children I thought I’d copy.
My pile features:
Minus nine to one: The Diary of An Honest Mum by Jools Oliver – My beautiful blog partner and friend, Katie, lent me this book when I first had Ned. Jools, wife to Jamie, wrote this incredibly frank and funny book about her pregnancy and birth of their first child Poppy. Just like I had enjoyed having Kaz Cooke by my side while I was pregnant, I found Jools’ book so comforting as she writes about all the things I was feeling as a first time mum. There is a part in the book where she has just had Poppy and she talks about feeling like she is the only person in the world to be up in the middle of the night. She and a girl friend who was also a new mum decided that if they sent each other text messages while they were both up that they would feel a lot less alone. Katie and I also began to have VERY early morning text message conversations and I will never forget how that made me feel semi normal at such a strange time.
The book is also so beautifully published with gorgeous pictures of Jools, Jamie, Poppy and Daisy throughout. There are also some recipes in the very back. If you can, find the hardcover edition, it really is a very special book.
The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule – The SouleMama blog has always been a favourite of mine because of the simple ways Amanda uses to bring creativity into her home and family. I’m not a big sewer or have any real creative bent and part of this book and her blog is sewing but I like it more for the crafts and ideas she gives you for connecting and enjoying with children. I particularly love the chapter on ‘living’ where she provides ideas for sharing nature with children, about seeking and finding and fairies – all things Ned loves and I love even as an adult.
Buddhism for Mothers by Sarah Napthali - I love being a mum and I have a gorgeous boy however like most of my friends I worry about being inadequate- in motherhood, in my career/business and as a partner. I have only just bought this book recently and keep dipping into it. It’s so easy to read and see the benefit in her advice. I have long been interested in Buddhism and find that there is so much to learn from Buddhist teachings about so many things in life.
The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease – I have used this book as a reference for a long time. I first picked it up when I worked for children’s specialist bookshop The Little Bookroom about 16 years ago and at the same time used it for Uni in my children’s literature classes. This book is a classic, it is one part guide to reading to children and getting them to enjoy books and second part treasury of more than 1,500 titles from picture books to novels that are the best to read aloud. I have always held storytimes where I have worked previously in bookshops and have always delighted in and seen the impact reading aloud has on children. This was even more apparent I found when I worked in the UK because of the reaction I had from the children to my accent, it really showed me the power of varing your voice while reading and how it captures children’s imaginations. Now I read this book as a parent and it reminds me to be in the moment when I read to Ned.
How To Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson – This book is stunning just like Nigella herself. I’m not a very good cook as many will testify to but I do love to bake. Cakes and desserts are what I’m best at and cupcakes are my all time favourite. This is the cookbook that I always return to. A really good investment.
The New Useful Book by Playschool – Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima and Humpty where all a huge part of my childhood. My little brother and I didn’t watch much television but my mum knew that she could trust Playschool to be educational and I continue that trust today. This book like the TV show is brilliant. It is packed with craft ideas (easy ones), games and song lyrics – which is really handy for when you forget a rhyme or the actions that go with it. And as a bonus the illustrations are by one of my favourite illustrators, Bob Graham. This is an absolute gem of a book.
We Love Foodby Kirsty Manning-Wilcox and Peta Heine – You will see from the photo I took that I actually only have this in manuscript form. This great book has just been published this month by Hardie Grant. As I mentioned I’m not the best cook and this is one thing that does make me feel pretty inadequate. I love this cookbook because it is easy, the food is interesting and it is all really nutritious. I enjoy using this book which is encouraging to someone who doesn’t enjoy cooking. The recipes are interspersed with pages that explain and ingredient, with notes on how to grow and harvest it. I have seen the published book and it is beautifully presented and photographed. It is a down to earth, everyday reference and the beef stroganoff is fantastic.
Although I should tag some others to play, I thought I might just say to everyone to please write us a comment and let us know the books that you value as mothers.
While I’m not a mother I really appreciate your thoughtfulness and can’t wait to get a few of these myself!
Thanks so much for sharing!!
I can only really think of one.
Madeleine’s World: a biography of a three year old.
It’s a really unique book, really hard to explain. It’s a journey of parenthood recorded by a writer, but it’s also a careful observation of Madeleine’s construction of her self. She is a very verbal child, able to articulate a number of interior experiences that Fred couldn’t (I used to think this was a literary device till I had Una who could speak in sentences when she turned one), and he is particularly interested in the way she uses books to interpret and construct the world.
I first read it when Fred was a baby and reread it several times over the next few years, could read it again now actually. It’s about being human, both as child and a parent, about the complexities of discovering our full range of emotions in the tight embrace of early family life. It’s also about the poetics of early childhood, the shared territory of early experience and the role books play in that, and for this reason alone I highly, highly recommend it.
When I was looking for a link I found a few reviews bagging it as self-indulgent, ‘pedomania’ one reviewer calls it. Perhaps you have to be in the same space yourself, I’m not sure, but I think Madeleine’s World will bring me back to that space for the rest of my world. It’s probably my most precious “grown up” book.
I love Rachel Cusk and Anne Enright, though I haven’t read their “Mummy memoirs”. I suspect they would take me to a different and far more complex part of myself. Brian Hall takes me to the part of me that is simply fascinated by seeing a child ignite into being.