Title: Mama’s House
Author: Mary Angelean Love
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 978-1-4134-9046-6
Genre: Juvenile Fiction / Family / Parents
Pages: 42
Reviewed by: Beth Adams

Read Book Review

Mama’s House is a very unique story about the building of a new home, for Mama. Along the way many setbacks, delays and frustrations by builders as well as with the family are being explained. As author Mary Angelean Love brings into the story the difficulties associated with building a house. Lots of money, materials, labor and challenges are shown with comically influenced illustrations while the storyline reads in a form of poetry with a casual beat and rhyme.

I read this book in its digital format, on my computer, which worked out very well. The scrolling of the pages vs. the flipping of the pages offered me a good viewing pace with the illustrations, many of which are drawn on one page. This digital format worked better, in my opinion, as scrolling down the galley text and images brought to life the story excellently. So if readers are fans of using a computer for bedtime stories, this book is ideal for that media.

Mary Angelean Love has chosen a topic which is unique – the building of a house. Aside from many realistic situations, such as needing a building inspection, dealing with mistakes along the way, the story launches out to fanciful tangents. Pets come to the rescue helping nail the house together and carry items to help speed up the carpenters. Typical goofy workers slip, fall, show up late and tired, and all together show a comical sloppy attention to detail. And in the end, the house takes on a soul of itself – so there is a big “house cartoon-man” flipping burgers on an outdoor Bar-B-Que party to celebrate its completion. Nothing can be more imaginative and childishly cookey at the same time! In a way it was like Monster House having its own personified human personality.

For youngsters who may have their own Grandmama moving into a new home, possibly as a retirement or assisted-living situation, boys and girls can see this is a common occurrence, and enjoy the humor in all of the details about the building of the new home instead of focusing on why “Mama” seems to be enjoying her own bed-rest time.

Mama’s House is sure to become one of the bedtime favorites for little boys and girls as they enjoy the silly situations, humor as well as some real information on construction, in a flurry of imaginative fun.