[ddarol]

My mother was an avid reader all her life. She read the newspaper everyday from the first page to the last (and did the crossword puzzle too!). She waited anxiosly every month for the Reader's Digest book. My parents had every Reader's Digest book ever published. And my mother read every one of them from cover to cover. And she always encoraged us to read them too.

As for her reading to us, I know she did, often. We had all the Dr. Suess books and a collection of Little Golden Books. The one I remember the most though, is A Child's Garden of Verses. I still treasure that copy. It has a special place in my library.

 

[MAGreen]

My mother was never really in my life and she passed when I was young, but as a mother I love reading to my children. This is one we really enjoyed reading together. I am going to request it for Kindle!
THE UNICORN CHRONICLES

 

[meljackson]

I got my love of reading from my mother and my grandmother. None of us were ever without a book. The day after my grandmother passed away we went back to the house and I noticed her book lying there opened on her bed. I was so upset that she didn't get to finish her book then my mother reminded me that she had probably read it many times before.
I'm doing my best to pass the bug to my 6 yr old daughter and our favorite books are the Junie B Jones books. She's starting to read them to me now and I think it's safe to say that she's caught this wonderful disease.

Melissa

 

[Panjo]

I often get my mom(s) books. A few years ago I got them


It's about women, traditions, etc. They LOVED it.

 

[Becks]

I had a major fascination/attachment to the moon when I was really small, probably after my mom reading this book to me all the time


She loves to tell the story of how I cried and begged for the moon for hours on a road trip one time

 

[EllenR]

As a mom, this is my personal favorite (and apparently I am not alone)



I have read that book to all of my kids when they were little and I cried every single time. I will still tear up just thinking about it. I have kept my copy (now 17 years old) and plan to keep it always. Other family favorites, also read to all my kids, include









and pretty much all her books.

My own mother was a voracious reader and read pretty much everything. I owe her my love of reading as she set the example in our house, never being far from a book. We all grew up to be readers thanks to her. Sadly, she took her own life in 1991 but her love of reading has now passed on to the next generation in my own kids.

EllenR

 

[Kristena]

My mom is still around but either my Mom or Dad read to us almost every night while in bed. We had all of the OZ books and she would START to read a chapter every night but would ALWAYS fall asleep! and then I would continue reading where she had started to doze.

To this day we tease her about it and mimic her 'reading with her eyes closed.'

 

[Googlegirl]

This has been my favorite series of books to read TO my kids.

 

[DD]

"Promises I Made My Mother" was just published on April 16th. I saw the author on FOX News this morning and promptly downloaded a sample of the book for the Kindle. It looks great so far and I'm going to buy it. It's about the values he learned from his Mom which brought him through some trying times in his life.

The author is a top dog with the William Morris Talent Agency and was involved with the talent from many TV shows including "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air". He is currently the director of the Miss America Scholarship Pageant.

Thanks for yet another contest, Harvey. What, no eggs this time? (Whew!)

 

[Saylorgirl]

My Mom bought me a paperback of “Gone With the Wind” when I was 14.  I fell so much in love with that book and have read it so many times.  It now keeps a place of honor in my bookcase but it is much too fragile to even pick up!  The scene where Scarlett has to get home to her Mother and finds her dead always brings me to tears.

This was the first book I downloaded to my Kindle and I named her “Scarlett”.  I am so fortunate to still have my Mom, I plan on buying her a Kindle for her birthday.

Thanks to Oberon this is a wonderful idea!

 

[wavsite]

Wow, I had to do some SERIOUS Googling and Wikipedia-ing to find this one, my memory is terrible! Took me a while, but here's the one mom got for me and my sister when we were little:

Bedtime Stories, by Thornton W. Burgess

I never knew until now, but it's actually just selected stories of his animal characters, from other books. Danny Meadow Mouse, Peter Rabbit, Bobby Coon, Bowser the Hound, Old Granny Fox... wonderful stories, with beautiful illustrations. I got a little lost in this online repository of the books: http://www.online-literature.com/thornton-burgess/

Then there was:

Meg and the Mystery in Williamsburg, by Holly Beth Walker

My mom got me that during a trip to Colonial Williamsburg, right after we moved to Virginia Beach from central Illinois, as I was starting 4th grade. I never knew it was a series until I got nostalgic over it about a year ago and tried to find it again. Ended up getting the whole series through Amazon resellers and eBay.

 

[Vegas_Asian]

The Joy Luck Club

The book looked over views and stories of two generations of Asian American woman: the mothers who came from China to America and their daughters raised in America. Although I am the third generation born in the US, I still related to the characters as many of the Asian traditions held strong during the generation my family lived in Hawaii.

The relationship between my mother and I has been quite strained since I started high school. Much of it had to do with the expectations I was to fulfill and the assumptions my mother and I made on each other's behaviors. This semester my class was to write a letter to someone that we always wanted to say something to, but never do/did (letter written more for self than the person it was addressed to.) I wrote to my mother. A week later I got my letter back and on the back my professor recommended a book…The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. That weekend I read the book and related to many of the daughters' stories. Not only did I relate to the daughter's story I understood what was being seen on the mother's side of the story as well. Since then I have bought a hard copy of Joy Luck Club and printed a revised version of the letter (describing what I wrote in the first letter and what has changed since then). In the copy of the Joy Luck Club, I labeled parts that I related to. I never got to give my mother the book or the letter yet, but that didn't really matter. The fact is that I came to the realization that there is a lot more to this relationship than what I see. Since reading the book, I have been trying to get my mother better and developed a greater appreciatation for many of the things I didn't before. I'm the only reader in the family, so I really don't think my mom is going to read it when I give it to her. she hasn't read the last book I got her a signed copy of The Wednesday Letters .


Also another one I love:

 

[simplyCee]

Our Family Bible

Our family bible is our family record.  When my mother's mother (my grandmother) passed a way on Easter morning a few years ago my aunt decided to be the next recorder of our family history.  You see this book has a record of every birth, death, marriage, etc in my family since my great, great grandmother.  The very last entry was my grandmother's death. 

Recently, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, a second time.  Right before her masectomy surgery, she confided in me that she feared she would be the next entry in the family bible.  I encouraged her to have faith that she would live to fight the cancer, she would not die during the operation and reminded her that faith is believing in the things you cannot see. I promised her that when she woke up in the recovery room I would be right there by her side.  I am proud to say that when she woke up in recovery not only was I there but I was holding the very bible she was afraid she would end up being an entry in.  When she looks at our family bible today it is a reminder that she fought her cancer and won.  My grandmother is still the last entry in our family record.

 

[KD2709]

When I was a little girl, my mom read to me every night! Sometimes I was lucky and got her to read me two books before bed, but ever since then I have had to read before I go to sleep. My favorite book ever is Go Dog Go by P.D. Eastman. I could recite this book by heart when I was a child! Now my mom has started reading it again to my nephew. Everytime I see this book, I get all kinds of happy memories.

 

[KindleKay (aka #1652)]

When I was little, my Mom used to read to me pretty regularly. One night, she was sitting on the floor beside my bed and I was looking over her shoulder. She was reading to me "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs", which we had read several times. On this particular night, my Mom noticed that in one of the illustrations, there was a syrup bottle on the kitchen table. It was labled "Uncle Jim's Syrup" or something like that. My mom lost it with laughter. I mean, she laughed til she was blue in the face and out of breath. I don't particularly know what was so funny about that, but it sure struck her that night. I will never forget it.

Now that I have a son, when he was little, I read him "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" and when I got to the illustration, I smiled, remembering how funny my mom was that night so many years ago....

 

[RB]

My Mom would always read Shel Silverstein poems to us.  My sisters and I would always take baths together when we were young, and our favorite poem was:

There's too many kids in this tub
There's too many elbow's to scrub
I just washed a behind that I'm sure wasn't mine
There's too many kids in this tub

Now that I'm a Mom, my kids take baths with their cousins, and they all recite the poem together in the tub!!

 

[Mom2AshEmBella]

For me, The Secret Life of Bees has special meaning. I myself have a troubled relationship with my mother, and this book reminded me that mothers come in all forms and to look at the loved ones around us and how each one "mothers" us in her own way.

 

[jaspertyler]

I am reading this book right now and I wonder what it would be like to be a mother with a child with difficulties such as this...
It is a good book. I'm listening to it on audible and am about half way through.

 

[KindleKay (aka #1652)]

For me, The Secret Life of Bees has special meaning. I myself have a troubled relationship with my mother, and this book reminded me that mothers come in all forms and to look at the loved ones around us and how each one "mothers" us in her own way.

I could not agree with this book choice and the posters comments more.....DITTO, Mom2AshEmBella!!! Glad that I am not alone....

 

[MeganW]

My sister and I are lucky enough to still have our mom around. She's definitely instilled in us the love of reading, and our love of mysteries and all things Jane Austen.

One of our favorites is 'Salem's Lot. The first time we read this, we read it at the same time and shared notes. It was a lot of fun.


Next has to be the Janet Evanovich series, starting with One For The Money:


Followed by Pride and Prejudice:


Which of course, has to be followed directly by Mr. Darcy himself, Colin Firth:


She's pining away for a Kindle now (as we all did!), and hopefully we'll be able to talk our dad into buying one for her as a retirement from teaching/anniversary present.