15 Mother's Day story ideas, each one a book your child stars in: A secret plan, a slightly burnt breakfast and the best hug of the whole year. Pick one, add a few details, and the illustrated book starts right away.
Every story is painted in a soft, hand-drawn watercolour look, with your child as the hero of the big day.
Mother's DayMummy always wakes up first, so on Mother's Day Your child wakes up even earlier. The toast is a little burnt, the tea has too much sugar and the flower is from the neighbour's balcony. When Mummy sees the tray, she sits down on the bed and laughs and cries at the same time, and eats every bit of the burnt toast.
Lesson: Love made by small hands is the sweetest thing of all
Mother's DayYour child makes a list of everything Mummy does in a day, and the list is three pages long. So Your child and Papa do all of it: the beds, the dishes, the plants, the phone calls to Nani, even the shopping. Mummy sits with a book and her feet up. By evening the kitchen is a mess, but Mummy says it is the best-looking mess she has ever seen.
Lesson: You understand someone best when you walk in their shoes
Mother's DayYour child wants to write a card for Mummy but every word feels too small. After an hour of scribbling and crossing out, Your child draws instead: Mummy holding an umbrella in the rain, Mummy at the school gate, Mummy singing at bedtime. There are no words on the card at all, and Mummy says it is the most she has ever been told.
Lesson: Some feelings are too big for words and just right for pictures
Mother's DayFor Mother's Day, Your child wants a gift with no money in it. Nani suggests noticing. For one week, Your child carries a notebook and writes down every single thing Mummy does: tiffin, plaits, the bus stop, the fever night, the bedtime song. There are a hundred and twelve. On Mother's Day, Your child reads the whole list aloud, and Mummy has to stop the reading to find a tissue.
Lesson: Noticing someone is the biggest gift you can give
Mother's DayMummy hates the Sunday kitchen: greasy pans, sticky counters, a full sink. On Mother's Day morning, Your child wakes before her, and instead of breakfast in bed, scrubs the whole kitchen: every pan, every counter, the floor. It takes two hours and the sponge is destroyed. Mummy walks in expecting to cook, and stands still for a full minute. Then she makes chai for both of them, in a clean kitchen.
Lesson: The best gift is the job someone dreads
Mother's DayOn Mother's Day, Your child sees the watchman on a video call with his old mother in the village, holding the phone very carefully. He has not seen her in three years. Your child runs upstairs, fetches a marigold from Mummy's puja plate, and asks Mummy for one gulab jamun. Then Your child hands them to the watchman for his mother, through the phone. His mother laughs at the flower on the screen.
Lesson: Every mother deserves a flower, even through a phone
Mother's DayMummy has a fever on Mother's Day and the plan for the picnic is cancelled. Your child remembers every fever night Mummy sat up, and decides it is time to return it. Your child wets a cloth for her forehead, makes khichdi with Dadi's help, and reads her favourite book aloud until she sleeps. In the morning Mummy says it was the best Mother's Day, because she was mothered.
Lesson: Care given comes back as care
Mother's DayThe class is putting on a Mother's Day show and every child is singing a film song. Your child decides to write a new one, just about Mummy: her burnt parathas, her loud laugh, the way she runs after the bus. The tune is wobbly and the words do not all rhyme. When Your child sings it, Mummy is the only mother in the hall laughing and crying at the same time.
Lesson: A song made just for one person is worth more than a famous one
Mother's DayPapa promises Mummy a day off for Mother's Day, but by ten o'clock she is already in the kitchen because nobody else knows where anything is. Your child takes charge: writes where everything is on sticky notes, makes Papa the dishwasher, the little brother the table-setter, and sends Mummy to the balcony with a book. She reads three chapters. It is the first time in a year.
Lesson: A promise needs a plan to come true
Mother's DayEveryone is fussing over Mummy on Mother's Day, and Your child notices Nani sitting quietly, and remembers she is Mummy's mother. Your child whispers to Mummy, and together they make a second card, a second cake slice and a second hug. Nani pretends it is silly, then keeps the card on her bedside table for a year. Mummy says she had forgotten to be a daughter that day.
Lesson: Every mother has a mother; remember them both
Mother's DayEvery morning Mummy runs after Your child's bus with the forgotten water bottle, or tiffin, or homework. On Mother's Day, Your child decides that Mummy will not run today. The night before, Your child packs everything, checks it twice, and lines it up by the door. In the morning, the bus leaves with nothing forgotten. Mummy stands at the gate with nothing to chase, and waves instead.
Lesson: The best thank you is not making someone run
Mother's DayLooking through the family photos for a Mother's Day collage, Your child realises Mummy is in almost none of them: she is always the one holding the camera. Your child borrows Papa's phone and, for one week, secretly photographs Mummy: cooking, laughing, sleeping on the sofa, plaiting hair. The collage on Mother's Day has Mummy in every single picture, and she cannot believe how many.
Lesson: The one who takes the pictures deserves to be in them
Mother's DayMummy works in another city and can only come home once a month, and Mother's Day falls on a working week. Your child posts a parcel: a card, a drawing of the whole family, and a small jar of Mummy's favourite mango pickle from Dadi's kitchen. Mummy calls that night from her tiny room, holding up the pickle jar, and says the room smells like home now.
Lesson: Love can be posted, and it still arrives warm
Mother's DayThe flower shop bouquets cost too much for a pocket-money budget. Your child walks the lane instead: a bougainvillea branch from the park wall, jasmine from the temple creeper with the priest's permission, a wild sunflower from the empty plot. Tied with Nani's red thread, it is the strangest bouquet ever. Mummy puts it in her best vase and says the shop ones never smelled of the lane.
Lesson: A gift gathered with care beats a gift bought in a hurry
Mother's DayOn Mother's Day, Your child asks Mummy what she wanted to be when she was small. Mummy laughs and says a singer, and then goes quiet. Your child finds an old cassette in Dadi's cupboard with Mummy's name on it. That evening, the family listens to a fourteen-year-old Mummy singing, clear and beautiful. Your child asks her to sing again, and after twenty years, she does.
Lesson: Ask your mother who she was before she was your mother