My Working Mom [Hardcover]

Peter Glassman (Author), Tedd Arnold (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 3 and up | Grade Level: P and up

Everyone knows that it isn't always easy having a working mom, but this girl's mom has a job that keeps her whole family jumping!

After all, when your mom is always flying off to meetings or mixing strange potions in her laboratory, life can be both trying and exciting. And even through Mom throws birthday parties that are out of this world, there are still those bats and frogs who always follow her around.

Peter Glassman's enchanting story, brewed together with Tedd Arnold's bewitching pictures, is sure to cast its spell on young readers, whoever and whatever their mothers may be.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This gigglesome picture book about a "working mom" who's a witch fairly bursts with luminous illustrations, riotous counterparts to the deadpan text. Not that Glassman ( The Wizard Next Door ) wants to put too much color into his narrative--statements made by the narrator (the career mom's chatty daughter) could apply to any family, while the slapstick-y pictures are meant as the giveaway. Here, the mother's chemistry set includes a glowing caldron into which she tosses flies and green goo, and on Career Day she upstages other rather weird parents (among them a Frankenstein and the Creature from the Black Lagoon) by taking her daughter's classmates on a broom ride. Witchery and home life often mingle, as when the girl claims that her mother sometimes "yells at me for playing with something she's working on"--while an illustration shows her enjoying a game of badminton with an enormous frog. Arnold's ( Green Wilma ) punchy watercolor and colored-pencil pictures seem lit from within, and his lizards, mice and assorted creepy-crawlies are endearing rather than slimy; if this book rates low on the fun-to-read scale, its fun-to-look-at level is through the roof. Ages 3-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3-Zany cartoon drawings tell the real story of this working mom who experiments in her lab, flies off to meetings, and makes weird dinners. For this woman is a witch, an occupation that has its up side when it comes to giving out-of-this world birthday parties and doing her thing during parents' day at school. The fun is all in the bright, colorful pictures that give meaning to the simple text; without them, there would be no story at all. Cauldrons, toads, salamanders, and bats are all here, and are all the more hilarious because they appear in the midst of a traditional suburban household. Youngsters will go back to this one again and again, each time finding new details to laugh over.
Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 3 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; 1St Edition edition (April 28, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688122590
• ISBN-13: 978-0688122591
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 8.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,835,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Appalling commentary on working mothers, October 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: My Working Mom (Paperback)

This book is soooo bad I burst out laughing. I am married to a working mom, and even I could tell that it is insulting to working moms everywhere! Working moms have enough guilt without this book to pile salt in the wound. Portraying the working mom as a witch sets the book off to a bad start. And to imply that she is rarely around, always late for kids' events, and ferocious after a bad day (as if stay-at-home moms don't get mad!) is no help. Would the author have written this about a working dad? I doubt it. This book sets us back decades in our fight for social justice.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Offended and disgusted, February 10, 2011

By 

JamesnJosie - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Working Mom (Hardcover)

In "My Working Daddy," Daddy Troll comes home from a hard day of trolling right in time to kiss baby troll goodnight (but no story, daddy troll is tired) and goes to watch some baseball. Meanwhile, Mommy Troll (working or otherwise) packs lunches, does laundry, washes dishes and sweeps the floors. He might be cranky, he might be absent, but Daddy Troll works and he wouldn't be the same any other way.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Tina Fey sent me, June 5, 2011

By 

erica - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Working Mom (Paperback)

Is anyone else here because they wanted to find out if this book was real? Page 255 of Tina Fey's Bossypants, describes this book and says, "I didn't love it. I'm sure the TWO MEN who wrote this book had the absolute best intentions....the topic of working moms is a tap-dance recital in a minefield."
Exactly, Tina. Exactly.