My Mama Sings by Jeanne Whitehouse Peterson

This book is about an African American boy and his mother. His mother has a song for everything, they are not new songs but he likes the familiarity of them. One day everything seems to go wrong and his mother doesn't have a song to sing. The little boy realizes that his mother is sad and that she doesn't feel like singing so he makes up a new song for her.

I thought this book was really sweet. Most of the book rhymed which I thought was neat because it was talking about the songs the mother would sing so I think it is great to be able to make that small connection. I also really liked that this wasn't another book about a white, middle-class family. The illustrations are amazing! The illustrator, Sandra Speidel, did a great job of making all of the pages seem almost like a dream which I think made a huge impact on how I read each page. I couldn't find what type of illustration it was in the book but it looks a lot like oil pastels or something for similar. All of the colors seem to flow together, there are no clear, precise lines. I really enjoyed this book and I think that children would enjoy it as well.