Friday Question #26: Who are your favorite literary mothers?

Happy Friday, BookishFirst Readers! We’re wishing all of the BookishFirst Moms and all of the mother figures in your life a happy and healthy Mother’s Day.

To celebrate, we thought it would be to chat about moms in books! Who are your favorite literary mothers?

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This is hard because I feel like in a lot of the books I read, the mother isn’t really prominent. But I’m going to go back in time to Ms. Honey, the best teacher and sweetest mother figure to Matilda and most recently I enjoyed the character of Ellen Claremont in Red, White and Royal Blue for her ability to juggle presidency and being a supportive mother.

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I just realized that most of the mothers I read about our horrid. The last good mother I read about was Eileen in WE ARE NOT OURSELVES

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I’d have to go with Molly Weasley as my favorite. Other than her, most of the books I read have such bad parents! :joy: Happy Mother’s Day to everyone celebrating! :cherry_blossom:

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That’s a hard question. The majority of the books I read either have absent mothers or there is no family element that isn’t twisted. Mysteries and Thrillers aren’t known for caring loving moms. I agree with Mrs. Weasley from Harry Potter, but I feel like I should have a better and more “me” answer. :thinking: I did enjoy The Joy Luck Club and any of those mothers would be a great choice. They all made sacrifices to better the lives of their daughters when moving to America.

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I love this. The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books – I very nearly used those moms as my answer :relaxed:

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Everyone’s going to shake their heads at my answer but I was a single mother fighting for a job in a men’s world. I relate more with Gina Royal in Rachel Caine’s Stillhouse Lake Series. I’m drawn to strong characters that have to fight. I read the other books but I enjoy most that fight for their family.

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It is one of my favorite books too. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Yes! I thought of Ms. Honey as a great motherly role model and she does become an adoptive mother, right?

Yes she does! I suppose that makes her more than just a ‘mother figure’ then. Oops :sweat_smile:

Ha! I didn’t even see you said that. I was just trying to remember the book. I hadn’t read it since I was a kid. :slightly_smiling_face:

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My all time favorite literary mother of all time was Marmee in “Little Women”, Mrs. Weasley is a close second that by with Mrs. Macawber from “David Copperfield” . Mother Goose and the old lady who lived in a shoe garner honorable mention.

My book review group just wrote a post about this on our blog over at Infinite Distractions! We had a lot to say about Molly Weasley (everyone loves her), some other moms from Harry Potter (Lily was the best mother who wasn’t there), and also about how mothers ARE often absent or dead in a lot of stories. But some stories still have great mothers (even if they don’t get a lot of ‘air time’), like Maura from The Raven Cycle or Ellen from Red, White & Royal Blue.

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I can’t think of any better literary mother than Marmee from “Little Women”!

The Other Mother from Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline” She’s so creepy, I love her.

I´ve always loved Ma Joad from The Grapes of Wrath. :heart: