A Mother Is a House

April 1, 2021
Petit uses metaphors to describe the different jobs mothers do. This French import via New Zealand opens with the pregnant mother lying on the couch, her partner's hand atop her belly: "A mother's a house." Across the gutter, "She's a car in a rush" as the two stride down the sidewalk. With the page turn, she's a "lullaby hush," the baby in her arms. A "permanent fountain" shows her breastfeeding, and she's a "wall" when she blocks the now-crawling tot from her toolbox and a ladder. She serves as an island when the two are soaking in the bathtub, the babe's tush in the air, and readers see the mother's bare bum and a side view of her breast (and nipple) when she's compared to "a picture" in a pose that evokes impressionist art. While a changing rhyme scheme makes reading this aloud a bit of a challenge, the fact that the phrases are scattered across page turns makes this less of a drawback, especially since children may want to pause to see how a mom is a "kangaroo pouch" or a "roof in the street." Mom has pink skin and brown hair; her partner and child share lighter coloring and grayish-greenish hair. What's most striking about the book, though, is its use of intense neon colors both for details and large swaths of the illustrations and for the text itself. The final metaphor says it all: "A mother's a home." (Picture book. 3-7)

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