Angie Cui (text) and Evie Barrow (illustrator), My Mum is a Bird, University of Queensland Press, April 2025, 40 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9780702268632
As a parent I feel I’ve become largely immune to the embarrassment my kids put me through. After dozens of nappy-geddon situations, unfiltered comments in public and one accidental call to emergency services, it now takes a lot to rattle me. I never studied Physics, but there seems to be some natural law that the older my kids get and the less they embarrass me, the more they are embarrassed by me.
My Mum is a Bird is all about a red-cheeked youngster whose worst fears are becoming a lived reality as her mum insists on coming to Parents’ and Carers’ Day. The cause of the embarrassment is the fact that Mum is not like other mums, she is a bird. Even at home, mum just can’t anything right. She brushes hair wrong, warms up Milo wrong and butters the toast wrong. I’ve seen some impressive eye-rolls from my own kids, but the one our main character gives on the trip to school tells us everything we need to know about the levels of embarrassment.
In the classroom the shame continues to pile on. The families have all brought a special treat to share for morning tea, and a bowl of birdseed is very distinguishable among the other ‘normal’ goodies. We summit the peak of Mount Embarrassment as Mum starts warbling out a tune. Both mother and daughter take their place in a tree during outside time, very clearly putting them in the margins of the group…until a spider drops onto another child’s head. While all the other parents are hopelessly hiding or ‘helping’, Mum knows just what to do.
The illustrations are adorably gentle, just what we would from Evie Barrow. For a story that is in the first person of a child narrator, the images are perfectly child-like and innocent. Evie should be commended for representing the main character’s humiliation so completely. My personal favourite is the trip to school; I genuinely laughed out loud.
I highly recommend this picture book. Librarians looking for something not so obviously didactic, this is a wonderful option for Harmony Week library session. It could be a great intro into discussions about diversity and inclusion. You could also explore the idea that everyone has unique talents and each are needed – a homogenous society would be boring.
A solid premise, great pictures and a layered story. This is one of my favourites so far this year.
Reviewed by Cherie Bell
