From inspirational memoirs and parenting advice to quirky fictional moms and an ode to family recipes, this Mother’s Day list celebrates every kind of mom.


Inspiring Reads for Mom:

A Mother’s Book of Blessings by Lena Tabori

Curated especially for mothers, this beautifully illustrated keepsake contains more than 100 blessings from around the world to celebrate life’s special moments and encourage reflection for the whole family.

With ageless wisdom for every occasion, this elegant little book is perfect for mothers looking for a little dose of enlightenment. Illustrated with exquisite vintage art, it’s filled with time-honored proverbs, enriching parables, uplifting quotes, and inspiring poetry that encourage readers to contemplate and celebrate life’s milestones. These illuminating words and their invaluable lessons, drawn from cultures around the world, will resonate with families from all walks of life.


The Mindful Day by Laurie J. Cameron

This ultimate guide draws on contemplative practice, modern neuroscience, and positive psychology to bring peace and focus to the home, in the workplace, and beyond.

In this enriching book, noted mindfulness expert and international teacher and business leader Laurie J. Cameron—a veteran of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being at George Mason, and 20-year mindfulness meditation practitioner—shows how to seamlessly weave mindfulness and compassion practices into your life. Timeless teachings, compelling science and straightforward exercises designed for busy schedules — from waking up to joy, the morning commute, to back-to-back meetings and evening dinners—show how mindfulness practice can help you navigate life’s complexity with mastery, clarity and ease.


Beauty in the Broken Places by Allison Pataki

This is a manifesto for living, an ultimately uplifting story about the transformative power of faith and resilience. It’s a tale of a man’s turbulent road to recovery, the shifting nature of marriage, and the struggle of loving through pain and finding joy in the broken places.

 

Five months pregnant, on a flight to their “babymoon,” Allison Pataki turned to her husband when he asked if his eye looked strange and watched him suddenly lose consciousness. After an emergency landing, she discovered that Dave had suffered a rare and life-threatening stroke. When Dave woke up, he could not carry memories from hour to hour, much less from one day to the next.

As a way to make sense of the pain and chaos of their new reality, Allison started to write daily letters to Dave. Those letters became the foundation of this beautiful, intimate memoir. And in the process, she fell in love with her husband all over again.


Advice for Moms:

Stuff Every Mom Should Know by Heather Gibbs Flett and Whitney Moss

This little handbook is filled with all the secrets and strategies a smart mother needs to know. Featuring tips for mastering quick and easy meals, suggestions for baby-proofing like an expert, advice on stocking your medicine cabinet, tricks to making a long wait fun, and much, much more.

Inside you’ll also tackle the truth about potty training, learn birthday-party survival tips, discover the miracle of white noise, and read about comebacks you can use for unsolicited parenting advice (we’ve all been there).

Click to Read an Excerpt.


Bounceback Parenting by Alissa Marquess

Looking for more connection with your kids—and more fun, too? Welcome to the Bounceback Parenting League!

This insightful and empowering book is more than just another parenting guide. It’s a playbook filled with simple yet powerful “secret missions” for parents who want to recharge, refresh and restart in a positive new way.

Filled with simple challenges, journal prompts with room to write, and inspiring advice to try today, this is a game-changing resource for overwhelmedmoms and dads everywhere.

Get ready for your first mission . . .

Click to Read an Excerpt.


What to Feed Your Baby and Toddler by Nicole M. Avena, PhD

A science-based manual for feeding babies exactly what they need to hit physical and intellectual milestones from 6 to 24 months, with 60 recipes.

World-renowned research neuroscientist, nutrition expert, and author of What to Eat When You’re Pregnant Dr. Nicole M. Avena presents an essential guide for new parents on feeding babies during their critical first two years. Answering common questions about picky eaters, food allergies, diversifying baby’s appetite, eating out or on the go, feeding baby at daycare or when with another caregiver, and food safety, this comprehensive guide offers easy monthly meal plans and baby-friendly, nutrient-rich recipes designed to support your baby’s developmental milestones.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


To Moms Everywhere:

Perfect is Boring by Tyra Banks and Carolyn London

Tyra Banks and her mother, Carolyn, get raw, real and cray-in-a-good-way as they share what they’ve learned on Tyra’s journey from insecure preteen to supermodel and entrepreneurial powerhouse.

Though she’ll be the first to tell you she is not her daughter’s best friend—‘cause she ain’t that kinda mama!—there’s no doubt that Carolyn’s signature mix of pep talks and tough love got Tyra to where she is today, and here they pay it forward to empower readers with a reminder that perfect really isn’t all that.

Full of smart, wise, and often hilarious lessons for mothers and daughters everywhere—including “Take Responsibility for Yourself,” “Lip Gloss + Pizza Sauce = Boss,” and “Fix It or Flaunt It”—Perfect Is Boring is the perfect mother-daughter read.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


The Best Cook in the World by Rick Bragg

From the beloved, best-selling author of All Over but the Shoutin’, a delectable, rollicking food memoir, cookbook, and loving tribute to a region, a vanishing history, a family, and, especially, to his mother.

Margaret Bragg does not own a single cookbook. She measures in “dabs” and “smidgens” and “tads” and “you know, hon, just some.” She cannot be pinned down on how long to bake corn bread (“about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the mysteries of your oven”). Her notion of farm-to-table is a flatbed truck. But she can tell you the secrets to perfect mashed potatoes, corn pudding, redeye gravy, pinto beans and hambone, stewed cabbage, short ribs, chicken and dressing, biscuits and butter rolls. Many of her recipes, recorded here for the first time, pre-date the Civil War, handed down skillet by skillet, from one generation of Braggs to the next.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


Fictional Moms We Love to Read:

The Book of Polly by Kathy Hepinstall

With a kick like the best hot sauce, this is the laugh-out-loud story of a girl determined to keep up with her aging, crazy-as-a-fox mother.

Willow Havens is ten years old and obsessed with the fear that her mother will die. Her mother, Polly, is a cantankerous, take-no-prisoners Southern woman who lives to chase varmints, drink margaritas, and antagonize the neighbors.

Willow is desperately hungry for clues to the family life that preceded her, and especially Polly’s life pre-Willow. Why did she leave her hometown of Bethel, Louisiana, and vow never to return? Who is Garland Jones, her long-ago suitor who possibly killed a man? And will Polly be able to outrun the Bear, the illness that finally puts her on a collision course with her past?

The Book of Polly has a great blend of humor and sadness, pathos and hilarity. This is a bittersweet novel about the grip of love in a truly quirky family and you’ll come to know one of the most unforgettable mother-daughter duos you’ve ever met.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Click for a Discussion Guide.


The Windfall by Diksha Basu

A heartfelt comedy of manners, Diksha Basu’s debut novel unfolds the story of a family discovering what it means to “make it” in modern India.

For the past thirty years, Mr. and Mrs. Jha’s lives have been defined by cramped spaces, cut corners, gossipy neighbors, and the small dramas of stolen yoga pants and stale marriages. But then Mr. Jha comes into an enormous and unexpected sum of money, and moves his wife from their housing complex in East Delhi to the super-rich side of town.

The move sets off a chain of events that rock their neighbors, their marriage, and their son and brings unintended consequences, ultimately forcing the Jha family to reckon with what really matters. Hilarious and wise, The Windfall illuminates with warmth and charm the precariousness of social status, the fragility of pride, and, above all, the human drive to build and share a home. Even the rich, it turns out, need to belong somewhere.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Click for a Discussion Guide.


Here and Gone by Haylen Beck

A gripping, wonderfully tense suspense thriller about a mother’s desperate fight to recover her stolen children from corrupt authorities.

It begins with a woman fleeing through Arizona with her kids in tow, trying to escape an abusive marriage. When she’s pulled over by an unsettling local sheriff, things soon go awry and she is taken into custody. Only when she gets to the station, her kids are gone. And then the cops start saying they never saw any kids with her, that if they’re gone than she must have done something with them.

Meanwhile, halfway across the country a man hears the frenzied news reports about the missing kids, which are eerily similar to events in his own past. As the clock ticks down on the search for the lost children, he too is drawn into the desperate fight for their return.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


Gun Love by Jennifer Clement

The searing, unforgettable story of a young girl’s resilience, by the award-winning author of Prayers for the Stolen.

Pearl’s mother took her away from her family just weeks after she was born, and drove off to central Florida determined to begin a new life for herself and her daughter—in the parking lot next to a trailer park. Pearl grew up in the front seat of their ’94 Mercury, while her mother lived in the back.

Despite their hardships, mother and daughter both adjust to life while, all around them, Florida is populated with gun owners—those hunting alligators for sport, those who want to protect their families, and those who create a sense of danger.

Written in a gorgeous lyric all its own, Gun Love is the story of a tough but optimistic young woman growing up in contemporary America, in the midst of its harrowing love affair with firearms.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *