Customer Reviews

Mama, I'll Give You the World

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

When's the last time you did something nice for your Mama? Huh? How about for her birthday? What, you ask, flowers aren't enough? I write, I call ...

Well, little Luisa has you beat hands down. Her Mama works at Walter's World of Beauty transforming the neighborhood divas into raging beauties, or, uh, at least gussied-up versions of their middle-aged selves. But Mama wears a tired expression, now that Papa's out of the picture. We never learn why, but then it's probably none of our business anyway.

Walter's World is Luisa's world, where she does her homework, creates playful pictures of the customers and deviously plots to put a smile back on Mama's face. No spoilers here - the plot's about as predictable as can be, but Schotter has such lovely phrasing and vivid descriptions, you don't mind traveling down this oft-visited street where a happy ending lives.

Gallagher used oil paints, which makes the compositions seem older, yellower and faintly cracked, emphasizing Mama's fading youth and diminishing bloom. Exaggerated features, particularly noses, give everyone a comic air, but their softly padded frames and round, shining faces could only belong to a generous, kindly bunch. Only Mama is slender, but she looks more shopworn than chic.

Between Gallagher's loving details and Schotter's artful descriptions, I knew the World so well, I found myself firmly in joyful Luisa's orbit.

There are some 13 million single mothers raising kids in America today - so most timely is MAMA, I'LL GIVE YOU THE WORLD which tells of a daughter who watches her mother work at the beauty salon. Mama's birthday is coming - and Luisa decides to do something special to change her world. A gentle story will appeal to many a child with a single parent.

Am I the only picture book reader who noticed the extremely strong resemblance between this book and MAMA DOES THE MAMBO by Katherine Leiner (Hyperion 2001)? Both books feature little Hispanic girls whose mothers stop dancing when their husbands disappear. Aren't publishers supposed to check lists to make sure that perhaps unconscious imitations or at least obvious similarities between books don't happen? Who dropped the ball here?

The illustrations are lovely and lively, though.

I liked this book almost as much as I did the first time I read it--when it was "Mama Does the Mambo" by Katherine Leiner. It's too bad some authors and publishers lack the expertise (and integrity?) to recognize that this is a virtual (and verifiable) ripoff of Leiner's story, which has inspired, comforted and delighted children since it's publication 10 years ago.