Mama

It has been about two weeks since I read an ARC of this picture book – and I’ve been coming back to it again and again, yet I am at a loss of words to describe this beautiful creation.

For a start, this isn’t a book for children. This isn’t a typical gift for baby showers. This is a book that celebrates motherhood in all its forms - the new mother, the protective mother, the strong mother, the mother who is expecting, the single mother, the frustrated mother, the busy mother, the determined mother, the mother who has lost a child, the ageing mother… Each page has an intimate reflection on motherhood, a pencil sketch and a watercolour portrait so gorgeous and diverse, that you’d keep on coming back to this book for one more look, for one more turn of the page. The lyrical text is profound and tenderly emotive. The illustrations are so endearing that they remind me of photojournalist Steve McCurry’s portrait of Sharbat Bibi (‘Afghan Girl’) that appeared on the 1985 cover of National Geographic.

This book is already available in other languages; the English version will hit the shelves in April 2022.