Literary Moms

With mother's day coming up, it brought to mind some of the moms that appear in novels.  Here are s few books (both classic and contemporary) featuring some memorable literary moms.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

~ Katie Nolan

Young Francie Nolan, having inherited both her father's romantic and her mother's practical nature, struggles to survive and thrive growing up in the slums of Brooklyn in the early twentieth century.  Katie Nolan, her mother, is a proud woman who will do anything in order to make the lives of her children better.



Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

~ Mrs. Bennet

From Jane's Austen's classic, Mrs. Bennet is a silly, ill-mannered lady whose sole focus is to see her daughters marry well.







Life after Life - Kate Atkinson

~ Sylvie Todd

Atkinson delivers a wildly inventive novel about Ursula Todd, born in 1910 and doomed to die and be reborn over and over again. Her mother is an equally compelling character who is deeply devoted to her daughter.






Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

~ Marmee

The classic tale of the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as they grow into young women in mid-nineteenth-century New England.  Their mother Marmee is a strong, loving presence holding the family together acting as head of the household while their father is away fighting in the Civil War for much of the story.



The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemison

~ Essun
Essun, masquerading as an ordinary schoolteacher in a quiet small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Mighty Sanze, the empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years, collapses as its greatest city is destroyed by a madman's vengeance. Essun has remembered herself, and she will have her daughter back. She does not care if the world falls apart around her. Essun will break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.