Things To Do With Mom: Lots Of Fun For Everyone by Scholastic
Scholastic 2009
Ages: 9-12
Cautions: None

Kiwi Magazine Review:
I think the title limits this book a little, because this little blue book is chock full of great ideas to keep kids entertained on a rainy day or any day. With a mix of ideas for indoor or outdoor play, this book is a great resource for simple fun. This is a counterpart to the Things to Do with Dad book and equally enjoyable.

Product Description
This guide is full of fun and creative ways to spend time with mom, indoors and out. You’ll learn how to:

Treat Mom to a spa day.

Make a miniature garden together.

Plan a perfect picnic.

Create a haunted house… and much more!

Buy this book on Amazon.com

I Call My Grandma Nana by Ashley Wolff
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Tricycle Press - September 2009
Cautions: None

Kiwi Magazine Review
Kids may not realize that the special name they have for their grandmom could be shared by thousands of other kids, or be something completely different. In this sweet tribute to grandmoms, abuellas and nanas all over the world, the message is clear that a grandmom is a very special person, indeed.

Book Description:
“Abuelita is my Grandma,
She’s teaching me to sew.
The doll we’re making looks like me:
Blue dress, black braid, white bow!”

This book is about the different names chosen by grandmothers from different world cultures and from here in the United States. They are illustrated with a collage technique the author/illustrator used for the 1st time here.

Mama’s Kiss by Jane Yolen
Daniel Baxter (illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Chronicle Books - October 3, 2008
Cautions: None

Kiwi Magazine Review:
If someone blows you a kiss and you don’t catch it, where does it go? Follow a little girl as she chases momma’s missed kissed all over the place and finally catches it. The illustrations are perfect for the text, showing a fluttering, flittering elusive kiss.

Product DescriptionMama’s Kiss — The kiss Mama blew to her little girl goes merrily astray, slipping and sliding and sashaying from cheek to cheek . . . until it finally lands just right where it belonged. Told in jaunty verse, award-winning Jane Yolen’s clever fantasy offers warm and witty affirmation that it is indeed love that makes the world go round.

Buy this book on Amazon.com

Mommy, Mama, and Me (Board book) by Lesléa Newman
Carol Thompson (Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Board book: 20 pages
Tricycle Press - May 5, 2009
Cautions: None

Kiwi Magazine Review:
This sweet little board book takes a look at a family which has two moms and the happy style of play and love that each mother has. The illustrations are simple and perfectly accompany the text.

Product Description
Product Description
Mommy picks me up, up, up.
Mama pours juice in my cup.
Rhythmic text and illustrations with universal appeal show a toddler spending the day with its mommies. From hide-and-seek to dress-up, then bath time and a kiss goodnight, there’s no limit to what a loving family can do together.

Buy this book on Amazon.com

LIFE with Mother by The Editors of Life Magazine
Life - April 7, 2009

Kiwi Magazine Review:
Honestly, some books should simply come with a complimentary box of tissues. Life Magazine has compiled a gorgeous photo tribute to moms around the world. The photos in both black and white and color are incredibly touching and depict the intense bond of mother and child. A few famous faces appear, but this is everymom’s story.

Product Description
LIFE with Mother will charm thousands of readers, bring smiles to thousands of faces–and elicit more than a few tears. It did when it was first published in 1995, and this collection of warm, often funny, always resonant photographs will do so again.

LIFE’s editors have re-visited and updated more than half of the book, refreshed the photography with new material (including more full-color pictures), enlivened the design and added not only new photos but also text and quotations that set the proper home-and-hearth tone then carry it straight through the book. The best “Mom” images from LIFE’s storied pictorial archive are here, as are disarming shots taken by the man in the street. The book represents a tribute to the bond each of us shares with our mothers, and also serves as an inspiration. It urges us to remember the best of times, the golden moments. It spurs us to remember the love.

Buy this book on Amazon.com

My Forever Dress by Harriet Ziefert
Illustrated by Liz Murphy
Ages 4-8
Blue Apple Books - March 2009
Cautions: None

Kiwi Magazine Review:
This is a gorgeous story about a clever grandmother who re-loves her granddaughter’s dresses into new creations using a sewing machine, great ideas and the material from old dresses. We happen to have the very same scenario in my family where grandmom stitches, hems, recreates and rejuvenates my daughter’s clothing, making it even more special. It’s a very sweet story, well told and beautifully illustrated with another interesting twist on recycling.

Publisher’s Description:
My Forever Dress — A story about sewing and sharing, recycling and remembering, this book follows a special party dress a grandmother makes for her granddaughter. When her granddaughter grows taller, new fabric is added. The next year, the dress is ingeniously turned into a sleeveless jumper. Finally, when the little girl turns ten and is ready for a new outfit, she decides to give the dress to her little cousin so it can be her forever dress.

Buy this book on Amazon.com