My Mama is a Mechanic is a “Women can be and do whatever they want” book for the toddler crowd. And sometimes they are those things because of a little help from the imagination of a child.
The mom in this book wears many hats: surgeon, chemist and mechanic to name a few. What is going on is the Kid and their imagination see real-life situations and when these things are happening (she is a chemist because she cooks; a surgeon to only the highest class of teddy bears; and now there is one bike ready to ride) the child is proud of their mother and how they are seeing her. Doug Cenko mixes text and illustrations to make this a fun and quirky book. The colors and details of the illustrations compliment the tone and feel of the voice.
This would be a great read aloud for the preschool crowd for Mother’s Day. It could be used in a classroom or as a one-on-one reading book. It also is just a nice read about mother and their child.
The other nice part of the book is you see a family of color and while the child seems to have slightly more stereotypical “boy elements” the child is never named or gendered. Therefore, it can work for anyone. And none of this is pushy or forced upon the reader. It is just nicely there. This book reminds me of many Mother/Child books out there so it will fit nicely with these books, but it also has its own voice.