Our Mothers' Names: Love in Many Languages by Rahele Jomepour Bell, Uma Menon
Published by Candlewick on April 22, 2025
ISBN: 153622250X
Genres: Cultural / African American, Family, Realistic Fiction
Format: Picture Book Fiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads

There are many ways to say mother. The narrator is an unnamed dark-skinned girl whose family speaks two languages at home – English and Malayalam. (The most common language in Kerala, India, where her parents and grandparents were born.) She calls her mother Amma, but her friend Angelina, who also lives in the United States and speaks two languages, calls her mother Mamá. She goes on to visit other friends who speak Greek, Arabic, Russian, French, Japanese, and other languages and the name they call their mothers.

I enjoyed the flow of the story and the depiction of the different families, which conveyed much information without being blatant. This is an obvious pick for Mother’s Day story time. But I could also see this being used as a springboard for primary-aged children to research other words, such as for father or grandparent, etc. in different languages. A fact in the “Did You Know …?” section at the back intrigued me: “There are more people in the world who are bilingual or multilingual, which means they can use and understand two or more languages, than there are people who can use only one.”

This is an important book for American children to recognize multilingualism and see the connections between all children in this world, and to reassure others about their place in this country.

Barb Rehmeyer, Liberty Library

Nominated for Cream of the Crop