SUPERMOMS! Animal Kingdom and Humans, Too.

 HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY to the amazing moms among my family and friends. Each is SUPER in countless unique ways. Those SUPERMOM qualities are sometimes best known to their families, but many are also observed "in the wild" by the rest of us. Thank you for all you do, seen and unseen. 

In honor of those amazing MOMS and their SUPER POWERS, here's  a brief review and nod to a nonfiction book and its creators. 

CANDLEWICK PRESS, 2023

SUPERMOM, one of the AMAZING ANIMALS series, is written by HEATHER LANG and illustrated by JAMIE HARPER. This entertaining and informative picture book uses comic-style illustrations and speech bubble text  combined with short segments of "supermom" descriptive text. The facts are impressive. Paired with the illustration details these pages demonstrate to young toddlers and inform older audiences about some of the ways in which offspring in animal families are fed, protected, instructed, transported, and otherwise raised by their moms, specifically. 

The habitats and species range from mammals (far beyond the expected primate patterns) to fish and birds. Each critter and its young merits a colorful, lap-friendly, double-page spread. Some are familiar, like the remarkable penguin moms who travel fifty-plus miles to feed for two months storing much off their harvest inn their guts. Then they retrace their lengthy treks to feed the young by regurgitation. Other examples are far less familiar, like Pacific octopus moms who maintain vigilant care of their more than thousand octopi eggs, without a break for about five months. The final spread features spot illustrations and "mom" statements from each of the eighteen species, indicating both an added fact and bonus, "GUESS WHAT?" lines.

CANDLEWICK PRESS, 2024

There are plenty of animal patterns on Earth in which both parents, or even mainly the dads, share the heavy lifting of raising the next generation from birth to adulthood. In fact, just in time for FATHERS' DAY in June, this same creative pair will release SUPERDADS!, the next title in Candlewick's ANIMAL HEROES series.

Meanwhile, if you're looking for other titles celebrating Moms, here are some of my posts from the past:  

A MOM memory post HERE. 

A post about the more subtle but invaluable ways in which parents teach the next generation, HERE.

The power of positivity and resilience so often modeled by mothers, including the ways that model instills strength and identity in young humans, here.

If you enjoyed the deft quality of Heather Lang's nonfiction writing, check out some earlier offerings I reviewed in prior posts HERE, and HERE.