My Mommy Hung the Moon

January 1, 2011

PreS-Gr 2-A child rhapsodizes about how wonderful and amazing his mother is. From the everyday things she can do (drive her kid around, make him feel better, break into spontaneous dance) to the ways that she seems superhuman ("She pours all the seas/and sparkles each star./And then she collects one/in my night-light jar"), the recurring theme is that "My mommy's good at everything." It is a touching sentiment, and definitely universal, if slightly overdone in this case. There is a giddy exuberance in both the text and the illustrations that sometimes seems forced, particularly when the rhyme stumbles ("She feathered the birds./She taught them to chirp./She taught me to speak, /my cousin to burp"). There are moments, however, when the book manages to convey a child's sense of adoration with just the right amount of glee, such as when the mother bakes a "BIG MOMMA BATCH" of cookies, and the illustration shows a conveyor belt filled with cookies representing everything from ET to Mount Rushmore. It's an image that is genuinely funny and indicative of how children look up to the adults who positively influence their lives. While not this team's strongest offering, the book will find a place with mothers and children who want another book to celebrate the special connection they have with one another.-Kara Schaff Dean, Walpole Public Library, MA

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 13, 2010
Longtime collaborators Curtis and Cornell deliver a tonic for every mother who's ever felt underappreciated; their shock-headed narrator ascribes powers nothing short of godlike to mommy dearest. "She lit up the sun, so bright and so round./ She puffed out each cloud, stretched trees from the ground." Mom has plenty of irreverent qualities, too—she's as good at moonwalking as she is at giving hugs. Cornell's paintings are endlessly exuberant. When Curtis writes, somewhat opaquely, "She buzzed every bee. She spun every spider," Cornell has the duo creating larger-than-life shadow animals, while a goth older sister, who makes recurring appearances, casts a surly snake shadow on the opposite page. For all the time spent celebrating the idea that "My mommy's good at everything," surprisingly few lines are devoted to the actual relationship between mother and child. Rather, the story reads like a laundry list of the improbably fantastic things mothers are capable of. And while such praise is totally deserved, it begins to feel uncomfortably immodest. Ages 4–8.

November 15, 2010
Preschool-G In this giddy love fest, a boy with his red hair pulled up in a pointy do and dressed in the most bizarre attire romps with his free-spirited mother. His glorious mommy lit up the sun, puffed out each cloud, pours down rain, zaps out the thunder and makes lightning glow (no, shes not Mother Nature; she is a regular, though somewhat offbeat, mother). She is also very modern: She webbed all the world, she dotted .com. She ed the email, my own CD MOM. While mother, child and stuffed toy orangutan gallivant, a goth girl in the background presents a counterbalance to all the exuberant activity, participating in the activities as a not-too-sullen teen might. Although the pace is frenetic to the point of exhaustion and the characters are sometimes overwhelmed by the activities, this is a lively homage to mothers that children and parents alike will enjoy. Other books with superparents include Carl Noracs My Mommy Is Magic (2007) and Susan Paradis My Daddy (1998).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)