My Mother's Delightful Deaths

by Carla Haslbauer

Overview

What could it mean that your mom is paid to die? It could mean she’s an opera singer!

How does it feel to grow up as the child of a glamorous opera singer? It’s anything but boring! In a single day, Mom’s mood can change—from very quiet to loud to quick-tempered. By day she plays with the children, but at night a transformation occurs! Who will Mother be today? When Mom is on stage, she delights her audience and her countless tragic, but also funny, death scenes leave a special impression. But to her family, she is always Mom.

Carla Haslbauer’s hilarious debut picture book, inspired by the world of opera, reminds us that we all slip into many different roles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780735844568
Publisher:	NorthSouth Books
Publication date:	11/02/2021
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Carla Haslbauer was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and grew up in the small town of Bad Nauheim. She has worked as a freelance illustrator since graduating from the Lucerne School of Art and Design. As a member of the comic group Corner Collective, she also regularly creates comics. Her first book My Mother’s Delightful Deaths was nominated for various awards. Carla Haslbauer lives and works in Basel.

Editorial Reviews

"...Dryly funny and clever. The detailed illustrations, rendered in a soft pencil style, are sublimely stylish, capturing both cozy home scenes and the flashier theater world."

Booklist

"Quirky, unusual, and quite delightful."

Kirkus Reviews

"Colored pencil and watercolor art contrasts soft textures with entertainingly spiky draftsmanship in the cast of faces and lively speech bubbles that ramp up the energy. This will seize the fancy of young drama kids, and it may even encourage a few seemingly staid parents to find their inner hams."

The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"The detailed illustrations, rendered in a soft pencil style, are sublimely stylish, capturing both cozy home scenes and the flashier theater world. An intriguing and amusing take on the roles that all parents play."

The Horn Book

"I initially thought the book would mostly be of interest to opera lovers or those in search of a humorous story. But many children have parents’ whose professions are mysterious to them, so the book could be fun for families to read together and use as a springboard to discuss what, exactly, adults do at work."

Youth Services Book Reviews

2021-09-24
A child describes life with an eccentric mother.

Mom is changeable and unpredictable. She can be “nice” or “nasty,” quiet or loud. She’s a true diva—really: an opera singer who plays many roles, sometimes varying from day to day. The unnamed narrator and younger sibling are comfortable with their family dynamics enough to dive into her costume collection and put on their own shows. Today they are going to see Mom’s premiere performance as the witch in Hansel and Gretel. In this opera, as in many of her other roles, Mom must die onstage, fully explaining the odd, possibly off-putting title while providing reassurance to young readers. Although the child knows it’s just pretend, the art depicts the child’s tears and worry, for it looks so real. Grown-ups in the audience also get caught up in the sadness—even Dad sheds a tear or two of his own. The child narrates in simple, declarative sentences, with additional dialogue bubbles and sounds emanating from Mom’s vocal cords—these are presented in varied typefaces that enlarge and enhance the action, all translated from German in this Swiss import. Elongated, exaggerated, often hilarious illustrations fill in the details in full- and double-page illustrations as well as vignettes of many shapes. The children completely accept that their mom is different from other mothers and never really doubt her love. In fact, to them she’s quite (if not entirely) normal, and they are immensely proud of her.

Quirky, unusual, and quite delightful. (Picture book. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews