MY GREAT BIG MAMMA
by Olivier Ka and illustrated by Luc Melanson and translated by Helen Mixter
A soft, cozy portrait of a soft, cozy mamma whose little boy loves her fatness. When this beaming narrator hears his mother called “fat,” he’s “proud. If my mamma wanted to, she could pick up twenty kids at a time.” They laugh, snuggle and ride the bus together (she takes up two seats but he sits on her lap so it averages out, and the decent narration mocks no one). Melanson’s warm digital art, full of oranges and dark bluish-greens, features large, expressive faces. When mamma unexpectedly starts dieting, her distraught son—knowing that “little serving” isn’t enough for “a big mother”—restricts himself too: “No more salads because they make you slimy like a snail...No more yogurt because it’s too white and erases all the other colors” (the accompanying illustration to this last is drained of vibrancy). Mamma abandons the unwholesome diet, confessing she “only did it because of other people.” One quick disparagement of thinness is less than ideal but doesn’t spoil Ka’s welcome new celebration of being “perfect just the way you are.” (Picture book. 3-7)