A Mother Is a House | Board Book

The first home any of us knew wasn’t particularly concerned with square footage.

A Mother Is a House by French author and illustrator Aurore Petit looks at the first year of life from the wonderfully self-centered perspective of a baby. Mom is a house, a car, a lullaby, a road, a story, and whatever else the situation requires, often several of these things before lunch. As the baby grows from birth toward those first precarious steps, Petit’s bright, graphic illustrations turn each metaphor into something funny, unexpected, and occasionally very familiar to anyone who has spent a year carrying another human being around. Beneath all the neon color and visual wit is a surprisingly simple idea:  long before we understand what home means, we already know what it feels like.

The Details

• A Mother Is a House by Aurore Petit
• Written and illustrated by Aurore Petit
• Board book
• Follows a mother and baby through the child’s first year
• Bold, contemporary illustrations with special inks
• 48 pages
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 6.9" x 0.4"
• Publication date: April 6, 2021
• Originally created by French author and illustrator Aurore Petit