Quick now, fast now. It’s afternoon time,
and I just love my Mommy time.

It’s pick up sister from school time,
then off to violin time…

Mommy Time, unpaginated

Introduction

Aanii boozhoo friends, welcome back! This month, I’d like to focus on stories featuring Black characters and experiences, and appropriately I found this gorgeous example on my shelves. This is Mommy Time, a debut picture book from Monique James-Duncan! It’s extraordinarily sweet. Here’s the summary from the publisher:

Rollicking rhyme and playful illustrations record a day in the life of two rambunctious children and their stay-at-home mother. As fun as it is being a kid, it can be hard work being a mom. When Dad heads to his job, the joyful chaos of getting ready for the day begins. To the children, that day is a happy blur of school and playdates, singing and dancing, supermarket walks and library stops, bath time, story time, bedtime. But Mommy’s time is filled with a whole lot more—sweeping, laundry, stinky diapers—tiring work achieved with love in her eyes and care in her smiles. An authentic catalog of precious moments in the life of an ordinary family, this warm, revealing story builds a bridge of empathy between parent and child and celebrates the value of “Mommy time.”

Candlewick Press catalog

This book is a gorgeous ode to stay-at-home mothers. Let’s dive in below!

The Good Stuff

The cover of this book caught my attention immediately. I always love gentle illustrations like the ones on the cover, and the sweetness continues throughout. There’s a clear care to how the characters and their actions are depicted! The throughline of this book is a soothing gentleness reinforced by an internal rhythmic structure.

The story of a typical day in this family’s world is told super-effectively! The summary above captures a lot of what makes this book great, but I wanted to point out that the illustrations show us the mother’s point of view. The cover page even gives us a little story without the main text – we see Daddy riding off to work on his bicycle while Mommy and Baby wave to him from the stoop. The main story text is from the baby’s perspective; the focus is on how much he loves spending time with his Mommy no matter what they’re doing. Mommy and Baby do a LOT throughout the day! They help Sister get ready for school, drop her off, go to a baby meet-up AND go grocery shopping, and that’s all before lunch. There’s so much that happens in the short, rhythmic sentences that any caregiver who has stayed at home with their children will understand immediately. The brilliance of this text and the way James-Duncan uses it to tell the story is that it’s not just a wonderful read-aloud that caregivers can use to help their kids get ready for the day, but it’s a love letter to the often unseen labor of stay-at-home caregivers. It’s a reminder too that even if they can’t express it, a kiddo loves spending time with you doing every day things.

In Summary

I really love this book! It’s a celebration not only of motherhood but of Black motherhood. I’m hoping that the author and illustrator will collaborate again for more books just like this one! Mommy Time is highly recommended.

Mommy Time is written by Monique James-Duncan and illustrated by Ebony Glenn. It’s published by Candlewick Press and you can find a link to purchase it from various online retailers here. As always, gichi miigwech for reading!