A Card for My Mom

K-Gr 3–A lovely story about a young girl struggling to find the perfect Mother’s Day gift. Due to her limited budget, she is looking for a special card to give her mom. The struggle continues as she looks through card upon card to no avail. None of the card moms look like her beautiful mother—they don’t capture the essence of her jingling gold jewelry, big brown eyes, and happy brown face. The card options lack images the young girl has of her mom doing things indicative of her culture, such as mixing dough for rotis and naans, selling pakoras at the mela, or dancing the bhangra. How the young girl solves this problem is brilliant on many levels. Kapur illustrates the festive shops, gift options, and typical cards cleverly. This is a great book for companion lessons on social-emotional learning: how are we the same and how are we different.