A Mother's Love

Elevate the Everyday by Tracey Clark

Turn the everyday into the extraordinary with Elevate the Everyday, renowned photographer and blogger Tracey Clark's guide to documenting motherhood. Focusing on the beauty of ordinary moments, Tracey offers inspirational ideas that will jump start your photographic energies and enable you to see your children and yourself in a new way through the lens of your camera. (Publisher Summary)

The Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison

The Gift of an Ordinary Day is an intimate memoir of a family in transition-boys becoming teenagers, careers ending and new ones opening up, an attempt to find a deeper sense of place, and a slower pace, in a small New England town. It is a story of mid-life longings and discoveries, of lessons learned in the search for home and a new sense of purpose, and the bittersweet intensity of life with teenagers--holding on, letting go. (Publisher Summary)

Chicken Soup for the Mother and Daughter Soul by Jack Canfiel

For new moms in awe of their daughter's first step, veteran moms in a panic as their daughter leaves for her first prom, or seasoned moms who have just caught themselves saying "Because I said so!", each will be touched and inspired by these heartwarming stories that share the life-defining moments of the mother/daughter relationship. (Publisher Summary)

Momfulness by Denise Roy

Denise Roy combines the hard-won wisdom of a parent with the insights of meditation to create a spiritual practice that goes to the heart of everyday life: mothering with mindfulness. Through anecdotes, reflections, and specific practices, this book invites mothers to wake up and embrace their lives, discovering that they are always standing on holy ground. (Publisher Summary)

Chicken Soup for Every Mom's Soul by Jack Canfield

Motherhood is a lifelong journey that's as unique as every woman who embarks on it. These stories are for every mom, whether you're an expectant or an adoptive mom, a stay-at-home or working mom, or a grandmother watching your grandchildren grow. Share this book with any mom to remind her of the profound role she will forever play in her child's life. (Publisher Summary)

Mother-Daughter Movies by Rosemary Rogers and Nell Rogers Michlin

A mother-daughter team draws on more than two decades of joint movie-going experience to describe 101 of their all-time favorite movies, offering whimsical ratings, plot synopses, cast reviews, and behind-the-scenes gossip about the films.Wise and witty, Mother-Daughter Movies offers a fresh perspective on life's most important issues---from family conflict to surviving high school to understanding when tweezed eyebrows can totally change your life. (Publisher Summary)

Bonding over Beauty by Erika Katz

Provides advice for mothers of tween girls on age-appropriate hair, skin care, make-up, nutrition, and other health and beauty issues and on how sharing such matters can strengthen relationships as the girls grow into their teens and open the doors of communication and give you great bonding activities for you to do with your daughter. (Publisher Summary)

What my Mother Gave me by Elizabeth Benedict

In What My Mother Gave Me, women look at the relationships between mothers and daughters through a new lens: a daughter’s story of a gift from her mother that has touched her to the bone and served as a model, a metaphor, or a touchstone in her own life. The contributors of these thirty-one original pieces include Pulitzer Prize winners, perennial bestselling novelists, and celebrated broadcast journalists. (Publisher Summary)

Thanks Mom!

"For Being My First Storyteller, Thanks, Mom!  Here is a sweet video from HarperCollins featuring several authors - including Adriana Trigani, Veronica Roth, Lauren Oliver, Ann Patchett, Dan Gutman and more - expressing their gratitude to their moms this Mother's Day.

A Mother's Love

Looking for books featuring mothers? Stop by our book display on the Lower Level of the library for a few novels including:

The Chocolate Money 

by Ashley Prentice Norton:

The story of the daughter of a glamorous chocolate heiress who must navigate a complex landscape of wealth, sex, and decadence through a privileged childhood in Chicago and an East Coast prep school, with only her narcissistic mother to guide her. As funny as it is scandalous, The Chocolate Money is Mommie Dearest, Prep, and 50 Shades of Gray all rolled into one compulsively readable book. 

Secret Daughter 

by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Interweaving the stories of a Kavita, an orphan; Somer, the American doctor who adopted her; and Asha, the Indian mother who gave her up in favor of a son, a debut novel moves between two families--one struggling to survive in the slums of Mumbai, the other grappling to forge a cohesive family despite their diverging cultural identities.

Confession of Super Mom 

by Melanie Lynne Hauser

Endowed with extraordinary powers in a bizarre cleaning accident, middle-aged single mother Birdie Lee becomes her town's unwitting champion against a sinister force, an adventure that is challenged by Birdie's smug ex-husband, her teenagers, and a string of PTA meetings. "Like its title character, this debut novel has a secret identity: while it appears too adorable at first, and too typical, it's unexpectedly poignant and packs an emotional punch despite the cheery veneer." (Publishers Weekly Reviews)

Beautiful Day 

by Elin Hilderbrand

The Carmichaels and the Grahams have gathered on Nantucket for a wedding. Plans are being made according to the wishes of the bride's late mother, who left behind The Notebook: specific instructions for every detail of her youngest daughter's future nuptials. Everything should be falling into place for the beautiful event--but in reality, things are far from perfect. While the couple-to-be are quite happy, their loved ones find their own lives crumbling. In the days leading up to the wedding, love will be questioned, scandals will arise, and hearts will be broken and healed.

The Hand that First Held Mine 

by Maggie O'Farrel

Fifty years after an unconventional reporter of genteel origins becomes a single mother, present-day London painter Elina navigates the first weeks of motherhood upon surviving a dangerous labor and learns that her life is disconcertingly linked to the woman from the past.

Fiction featuring moms

Mothers' Day is fast approaching (Sunday, May 13, 2012).  If you're looking for some great new books that feature moms, try:

• Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius - A Nazi-era German woman, on her way to a Bach concert in Rome, tries to remain aloof and emotionally distant from the war but comes to the gradual realization that her husband might never return from the front.
• Four of a Kind by Valerie Frankel - When they are thrown together on the Diversity Committee for their children's Brooklyn Heights private school, four mothers impulsively turn their awkward first meeting into a poker game betting with intimate secrets of their lives.
• Come Home by Lisa Scottoline - Rebalancing her life and career after a painful divorce, pediatrician Jill learns that her ex has died from an alleged overdose that her former stepdaughter believes was actually murder.
• Stay Close by Harlan Coben - A bored suburban wife, a documentary photographer-turned-paparazzo and a detective who cannot let go of a cold case hide secrets from their loved ones only to have the past return in dangerous ways.
• The Possibility of You by Pamela Redmond Satran - Three women confront challenges in motherhood, including an Irish nanny who suffers a loss during the 1916 polio epidemic, a San Francisco hippie who meets a grandparent for the first time, and an adopted journalist who searches for her birth family.

All of these great new titles are available at Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library - reserve one now by following the link, clicking "request," and entering your library barcode information.

Momoirs: In Celebration of Mothers' Day

Mother's Day is coming up; why not celebrate your own mother(hood) by reading one of these "momoirs"?