Mother’s Day Book Recommendations from Red Hen Press
We are happy to add more books to the TBR list 😀
Mother’s Day is just around the corner! Every year hundreds of writers are inspired by the maternal figures in their lives. These writers were formed by their mothers and grandmothers and aunts and family friends. The result is works that showcase women as brave, kind, and capable, and numerous other adjectives which by themselves are unable to capture the uniquely enduring traits which these maternal figures encompass.
If you are looking for a great read or a touching poem to share with your mom or loved one this Mother’s Day, we’ve assembled a list of 10 of our favorites for you to choose from!
Mother’s Day Recommendations
I Wore This Dress Today For You, Mom by Kim Dower
A rich, complex, heartbreaking, and funny anthology of poems on motherhood—being one and having one.
Bind Me Tighter Still by Lara Ehrlich
Bind Me Tighter Still explores power and hunger, sacrifice and motherhood, and celebrates the fierceness of female strength in a male-dominated world.
Animal Wife by Lara Ehrlich
Animal Wife is composed of fifteen stories unified by girls and women seeking liberation from family responsibilities, from societal expectations, from their own minds. They address the complexities of transitioning from innocence to experience and take on the anxiety of motherhood.
The Burning Heart of the World by Nancy Kricorian
Leavened with humor and imbued with the timelessness of a folktale, The Burning Heart of the World is a sweeping family saga that takes readers on an epic journey from the mountains of Cilicia to contemporary New York City.
City of Smoke and Sea by Malia Márquez
“City of Smoke and Sea is part mystery, part magical, and completely captivating.” Queenie Rivers was raised by her grandparents in coastal Los Angeles. As she approaches thirty, her erratic lifestyle is forced back on course by a car accident and her grandmother’s intervention. But her recovery is interrupted by a break-in and Gran’s death.
A Professional Lola by E.P. Tuazon
A Professional Lola is a collection of short stories that blend literary fiction with the surreal to present the contemporary Filipino American experience and its universal themes of love, family, and identity.
Under a Future Sky by Brynn Saito
Under a Future Sky is a gathering of generations, a performance with ghosts anchored in Brynn Saito’s journey with her father to the desert prison where, over eighty years ago, her grandparents met and made a life.
A Plucked Zither by Phuong T. Vuong
A Plucked Zither explores what happens to language and thus emotions and relationships under conditions of migration, specifically refugee migration from Vietnam and its aftermath.
Flutter, Kick by Anna V. Q. Ross
Anna V. Q. Ross plumbs motherhood, migration, childhood, and the cycles of violence and renewal that recur in each. These are poems of math homework and police sirens, where a fox pops out of a fairy tale to dig up the back yard, NPR News spirals the evening carpool into memories of girlhood and trauma, and a city gas leak conjures xenophobic backlash against refugees.
Sugar, Smoke, Song by Reema Rajbanshi
Sugar, Smoke, Song is a collection of nine linked stories set in the Bronx, California, India, and Brazil. Following the secrets and passions of young women, these stories and their narrators cross genres and rules to arrive at unforeseen lives.