Non-Mom Moms

I'm one of the lucky ones. I grew up in a family with lots of love. I still have my mom and we still spend a lot of time together. Not everyone's so lucky.

Mother's Day always makes me think of the kids I've worked with over the years who don't have moms who live with them (or don't have them at all). Thankfully, most of them have someone in their life who takes on that role to help them through.

You don't have to be a mom to be a mom ... if you know what I mean. :)

Some of my favourite non-mom moms from my favourite stories are:

•  Matthew & Marilla from Anne of Green Gables - they pulled off a great tag-team mom for the lonley little girl and showed her how to love and be strong
• Gandalf in LotR - he really takes care of Bilbo and makes him a stronger, better person
• The Receiver of Memory in The Giver - Jonas has never experienced love. It's an un-used emotion in the dystopian community. The Receiver gives Jonas memories and strength and courage and hope .. and love
• Mrs. Beale in Maniac Magee - she takes in this runaway kid from the other side of the town and treats him like her own. She ignores the customs of her town and not only loves him, she gives him the thing he wants/needs more than anything else in the world - an address.

Moms make you better, stronger, happier people. They give you the skills required to be an adult. They give you unconditional love and a kick in the pants when you need it. Thanks Mom!

How about you? Who are some of your favourite non-mom moms?

Favourite Moms

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! I'm a little late, but it's been that kind of weekend - lots of fun and very little computer time! :)

So who's your favourite mom? In the literary world, of course.

When searching for literary moms, my mind immediately turned to the books I enjoyed so much as a child. Anne of Green Gables. The Hobbit. Nancy Drew.

Hmmm. No moms in those ones. A lot of my favourite MG & YA books follow this pattern, no parents, or more specifically, no moms. There are often mother figures who aren't moms, and sometimes aren't even women (check out last year's post for more on that!), but where are the moms? 

Harry Potter's mom is an influence on him, but she's not around much. Ron's mom, however, is an awesome mother figure!

Katniss Everdeen's mom is mostly broken by her life and the loss of her husband.

In Ranger's Apprentice, Will is an orphan.

In fact, in many of the books I read aloud to the kid, moms are notably absent from their lives or at least from the story. The Giver. Dogsled Dreams. Maniac Magee. The Outsiders. Leviathan. Hatchet. Invitation to the Game. Underground to Canada.

I think it's because moms are such powerful influences in our lives. There are a lot of things we don't do because we can hear our moms saying, "Do you think that's such a good idea?" They are often our moral compasses, our guides. At least for us lucky ones.

Fiction for young people is often much more interesting when the main characters have to provide their own moral compasses, choose their own paths. It makes it more difficult for the character, and thus much more fun for us! Especially for kids who often wonder what it would be like to make their own decisions all the time. Kids who imagine themselves in charge. No wonder books with absentee parents are so popular!

So who's your favourite literary mom?

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I'll be over at From the Write Angle tomorrow (Monday May 9th) discussing Info Dumps. I hope you'll find time to pop over and add your thoughts to the discussion!