posted on 24 Feb 2022

My Must-Have Mum by Maudie Smith, illustrated by Jen Khatun

Jake’s mum just can’t resist a rummage amongst other people’s discarded bits and bobs or a root around in a skip that’s been left on the street – everywhere there are opportunities to pick up things that are ‘must-have’.

Together Jake and his mum carry their finds back to their flat on the fourteenth floor of the tower block they live in and mum starts to transform them:

“Then Mum gets to work. She tinkers and tailors and mixes and mends.

She turns stuff around and inside out.

Mum can make something new out of any old thing.”

Size is no impediment to her collecting of junk – even an old truck on the way to the scrapyard gets commandeered and kept behind the flats as a garden ornament. Amazingly enough, it’s not just trucks but abandoned boats too! As the neighbour Mr Price says to Jake:

‘“There she goes again,” he said. “Your mum won’t be satisfied until she’s changed every last thing in the world.”’

These words stay with little Jake and that night he starts to worry. What if his mum wanted to change him too – to turn him into something else?

And as he lies in bed he decides the only way to protect himself is to get ‘far, far away’.

After a cold night in the ‘prairies’, morning dawns:

“The grasses swirled and swished. And then they parted……

Mum was there! And she’d brought breakfast.”

She tells him the most important truth of all:

“And my must-have mum told me and told me again that I was her one and only must-have son!”

The simple but heart-felt story from Maudie Smith is only one dimension of this lovely book from Lantana Publishing, who are dedicated to bringing us children’s books with stunning art aesthetics. The book is illustrated beautifully by Jen Khatun who says on her website:

“Jen's illustrations combine themes such as nature, wildlife, pattern, and the great worlds of her imagination which incorporates whimsical and playfulness in each line.”

The drawings are colourful and seem to me to draw on plenty of great influences – from Quentin Blake to Oliver Jeffers – to produce a style of her own.

Oh yes, and one other great feature of the book I haven’t mentioned – or I should say, I haven’t needed to mention: Jake’s mum uses a wheelchair. It’s really great that her use of a wheelchair isn’t made part of the story or an ‘issue’ – it’s just part of who she is and needs no more mention than the fact that she wears a yellow t-shirt.

Perhaps this is evidence that we really are coming to terms with portraying people with disabilities in books  as a normal and every-day occurrence without needing to draw attention to issues of ‘diversity’ to justify their inclusion?

The book is published in March of this year and can be order from your local independent book shop or directly from the Lantana website.

 

Terry Potter

February 2022