Mama, Do You Love Me? | Barbara Lavallee | Mama, Do You Love Me? Board Book

Mama, Do You Love Me? | Barbara Lavallee | Lots of Value in a Simple Board Book

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Mama, Do You Love Me?

	Mama, Do You Love Me? Barbara Lavallee, 1991 - 24 pages average customer review:based on 37 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This beloved story of a child testing the limits of her independence, and a mother who reassuringly proves that a parent s love is unconditional and everlasting is a perfect first book for toddlers.

Mama, Do You Love Me? Board Book

The book was in excellent condition and was mailed to me promptly.

Lots of Value in a Simple Board Book

My husband purchased this book for our 18-month-old son, and it has become one of his favorite books. I like that it shows a parent's unconditional love no matter what. It teaches that someone can be angry at and still love another person at the same time. It has also taught my son a lot about emotions, something he has had a difficult time understanding up until now. It also shows cause and effect (i.e. If you do that, I will be angry).

Finally, it has been fun to learn a little about another culture. I have had fun looking up the things in the book I didn't understand. I also like that, even though it is about the Inuit culture, that doesn't overpower the main lessons of the book.

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Excellent illustrations, great book!

I picked up this book in a book store in Alaska, well before I had children of my own. Then it was for the sheer pleasure of looking at the water color illustrations. Now I read it to my two kids, both love it. In fact my son (4 yrs) says "Read it again" right after I have just finished reading it to him :-)

It's a book about a child pushing/testing the limits of her mother's love - trying to see if she does naughty things will mamma stop loving her? And mamma's answers are always soothing and reassuring - telling her child that her love is a constant thing that the child can depend on. It is quite profound actually... we often get angry with out children for various naughty things they do. This book puts the thought into the child's head that "Even if mamma is angry with me, she still loves me".

Along the way, my kids enjoy looking at the pictures of a musk-ox, a ptarmigan (bird), polar bear, wolves, and puffins and a snow country far away from their own.

Wonderful to read to your kids - and cherish just for the beautiful illustrations.

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Mama Do You Love Me?

ISBN 0811821315 - Having read mostly positive reviews of this book, with most of the dissenters not making much sense, I was really looking forward to finding out if it could live up to the hype. The cover is appealing, in the same uniquely ethnic way The Rhythm of My Day (Kindermusik) appeals. This edition is a board book and is probably shortened from the original.

A child asks her mother "do you love me?" and, being assured that Mama does, indeed, love her very much, she proceeds to question that love further and further. The daughter wonders if Mama would love her if she did small things - broke eggs by accident or played pranks. Her mother says she would be sorry, or angry, or sad, etc. but that she would still love her daughter.

Some reviews have mentioned that the mother's unconditional love is an indication that the mother finds her daughter's suggested behavior acceptable. "What if I turned into a polar bear, and I was the meanest bear you ever saw and I had sharp, shiny teeth and I chased you into your tent and you cried?" the daughter asks and the mother replies "Then I would be very surprised and very scared. But still, inside the bear, you would be you, and I would love you." Mama's replies always include the OTHER feelings as well, from sorry to very surprised and very scared, but she repeatedly insists that she will love her daughter: that's what unconditional love is. A child can do bad things and make a parent angry, but the parent will still love them and Barbara Joosse conveys that message well here. The illustrations by Barbara Lavallee are fantastic. This book opens the door, if you want to step through it, for conversations about other cultures. The only potential negative will be parents stumbling over "ptarmigan", a word no other children's book is likely to introduce them to.

- AnnaLovesBooks

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Does not "show" or "prove" anything- a very average book

I bought this book because I am part Native and I wanted to keep that heritage alive for my daughter. I also liked the illustrations, which are beautiful, and she does too.

I was very disappointed in the story, however.

Rather than telling a story, this book reports a conversation between a mother and daughter that goes as follows:

"Mama, do you love me?"
"I love you so much [insert metaphor here]."
"This much?"
"Yes."
"What if..."
"I would still love you."
"What if..."
"I would still..."
"What if..."
"I would still..."

Et cetera.

I found this extremely annoying. It is not a child testing her mother's love; it is a child posing hypothetical questions. Moreover the mother's answers don't prove anything (as it says on the back of the book), because nothing actually happens.

It is sort of along the lines of The Runaway Bunny (which I liked), only more annoying, because the telling is all hypothetical, there is no intent to actually carry out any of the threats (unlike in The Runaway Bunny), and the language isn't as rhythmic, in my opinion.

The vocabulary is very rich but I do wish there had been a glossary of unfamiliar terms at the beginning, since some of these words are not ones that someone who does not live among or near Inuit would know.

All in all, a better book about love is Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree" and a better book celebrating Native American heritage is "Ten Little Rabbits".

I would only purchase this book if I owned all of the other books I wanted, and then mainly for the illustrations and vocabulary building.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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