My Mom Is Trying to Ruin My Life

by Kate Feiffer, Diane Goode (Illustrator)

Overview

Everyone has only nice things to say about my mom.

Everyone likes her.

She looks nice.

She bakes great cookies and makes me feel better when I have a bad day.

But would a really nice mom do embarrassing things like kiss me in public and tell loud jokes that no one thinks are funny? Well, my mom does those terrible things and worse - that's why I am sure that I have the most embarrassing mom in the world and that my mom is trying to ruin my life...

Or is she?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416941002
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
Publication date:	03/24/2009
Edition description:	Repackage
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	489,894
Product dimensions:	11.06(w) x 8.76(h) x 0.49(d)
Lexile:	NC590L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Kate Feiffer is a writer, a filmmaker, and a mother. She is the author of the picture books No Go Sleep!; President Pennybaker; But I Wanted a Baby Brother!; The Wild, Wild Inside; Which Puppy?; My Mom Is Trying to Ruin My Life; and Double Pink; and of the middle-grade novels Signed by Zelda and The Problem with the Puddles. She lives with her family on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Visit her at KateFeiffer.com.

Diane Goode has written seven and illustrated over sixty beloved and critically acclaimed picture books, including the New York Times bestsellers Founding Mothers and Ladies of Liberty by Cokie Roberts. She illustrated several books by Cynthia Rylant including When I Was Young in the Mountains, a Caldecott Honor Book. She is also the illustrator of President Pennybaker and My Mom is Trying to Ruin My Life, both by Kate Feiffer. She lives in Watchung, New Jersey, with her husband, David, and their dog, Briggs. You can read about her at DianeGoode.com.

Editorial Reviews

What if Mom and Dad were finally jailed for their crimes against their school-age daughter's humanity (e.g., talking too loudly and enforcing a regular bedtime)? How perfect would that be? The sweetness of our narrator's vision fades, however, when she realizes there would be no one around to love her and take care of her. Feiffer and Goode (previously paired for President Pennybaker) give this old chestnut of a story line an urbane sheen. The author understands that children like to assume a voice of objective authority by referring to themselves in the third-person plural ("[My mom] makes people's boo-boos stop hurting"). And while it seems a bit anachronistic that Goode dresses Mom in a pink shirtwaist worthy of Father Knows Best, her watercolor vignettes are gems of wry intelligence and comic understatement. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)

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Publishers Weekly

K-Gr 2

After stating that her mother "looks like a nice mom" who takes people where they need to go and makes boo-boos stop hurting, Emma goes on to list the ways her parents are trying to ruin her life. She imagines them both thrown in jail for their crimes of kissing her in front of her friends, worrying too much, and making her clean her room and do her homework. But thinking about a parent-free life only serves to remind her how much she really does need her mom and dad, and in the end she says, "I love you!" Done in bright pinks and greens, the expressive cartoon illustrations bring a lot of personality and humor to the plot, but frustrated kids and their struggling parents will find this saccharine story a bit too naive.-Julie Roach, Cambridge Public Library, MA

School Library Journal

A young girl recites a litany of offenses inflicted by her parents. Giving kisses goodbye in front of friends, a loud voice and excessive worrying are all evidence of reckless mothering. With sly humor, Feiffer details the child's elaborate-yet-doomed plans for escape. A final, desperate appeal to the authorities results in her hapless mother's incarceration. Dad, too, must pay his dues for such transgressions as enforcing a set bedtime, requiring a clean bedroom and the like. With glee, the child ponders a future free of parental interference. However, the veracity of the caveat "be careful what you wish for" soon becomes evident as the child envisions life on her own: "if...I have a bad dream because I went to bed hungry and without any stories and nothing to drink, there will be no one there to hug me and say, ‘It's just a dream.' " Goode's watercolor illustrations adeptly convey the wry tone of the tale, her orange-ponytailed little girl displaying a unibrow scowl as she contemplates her mother's sins. A comical rebuttal to a familiar childhood lament. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews