I love it when we get to review books. Those are becoming some of my favorite things to review so far. I'd Rather Be Your Mommy is an adorable picture book with soft, impressionistic illustrations, recently put out by Home School Adventure Co.
There are so many voices that say that a woman's time is best spent doing something, anything, outside the home, away from her children. I love that this story softly and gently teaches the importance of being the Mom, being present, and the joy that is available in child-rearing.
“When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and in neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens ...prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses? When the surf of the centuries has made the great pyramids so much sand, the everlasting family will still be standing, because it is a celestial institution, formed outside telestial time. The women of God know this.”
-Neil A. Maxwell
I decided to read the story to each of my kids, and caught the Peanut(4) first. We were given the digital book (there is a print version, too), and I do not love the digital format: I am a paper books girl. It's just not as snuggly to sit in front of a screen. But my girl, in her "fluffy princess dress" didn't mind. She sat on my lap, and when the story was done, she wanted to do it again right away. So we did. There is plenty in the lovely pictures to talk about. It was a good snuggle. 
The next one I caught was Dragon(6). He'd seen me reading to Peanut, and wanted some of the same -- even on the computer chair, rather than the couch. We had a good time. Lots of tickles and kiss-attacks. Lots of giggles. It was while we were finishing up that I noticed that a portion of the sales of the book goes to Show Hope, which is a charitable organization that helps orphans find families, receive needed medical care while they wait, and they provide services to help with overcoming the effects of abuse, trauma, neglect, and early attachment injuries once the kids are placed with their families. That's pretty cool. 
Hero is a big guy now: 10 years old and very nearly as tall as me. He made noise about squishing my lap flat as a pancake, but I told him I'd recover. I could tell that he was a little ambivalent about the whole thing -- but that he wanted to be included, too. So we had fun with it. He'd heard me read it to the little kids, and so I switched it up a little and inserted a couple stories about when he'd been a baby, which is always a hit. And it worked. We had a good time. The book is beautiful, the story is beautiful, the illustrations are lovely. If you get it, I recommend the print version, so the kids can grab it off the shelf and bring it to you at storytime - the digital copy just doesn't work well for that kind of thing, and I think this book definitely has "favorite story" potential.
There's also a cute coloring book, and they've got some prints that would be fun decorations for a nursery wall or something like that.
To see what other Homeschool Review Crew families thought of this book, and how they used it in their homes, click the banner below:
1 comment:
Looks like a very interesting book. I may have to check it out for a few lovely ladies that I know.
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