My Mother’s Delightful Deaths
What could it mean that your mom is paid to die? It could mean she’s an opera singer!
How does it feel to grow up as the child of a glamorous opera singer? It’s anything but boring! In a single day, Mom’s mood can change—from very quiet to loud to quick-tempered. By day she plays with the children, but at night a transformation occurs! Who will Mother be today? When Mom is on stage, she delights her audience and her countless tragic, but also funny, death scenes leave a special impression. But to her family, she is always Mom.
Carla Haslbauer’s hilarious debut picture book, inspired by the world of opera, reminds us that we all slip into many different roles.
Quirky, unusual, and quite delightful.
Kirkus Reviews
...Dryly funny and clever. The detailed illustrations, rendered in a soft pencil style, are sublimely stylish, capturing both cozy home scenes and the flashier theater world.
Booklist
Colored pencil and watercolor art contrasts soft textures with entertainingly spiky draftsmanship in the cast of faces and lively speech bubbles that ramp up the energy.
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
This story is a gripping portrait—with much empathy Haslbauer draws a picture of her own mother, a character who can be warm at times and explosive at others and who is always is a little bit eccentric. A lot of wit, light strokes and dynamic illustrations.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany's leading newspapers
Haslbauer (whose own mother was an opera singer) employs smart pacing and dramatic page-turns as the narrator explains what it’s like to be related to someone who is larger than life.
The Horn Book
...many children have parents’ whose professions are mysterious to them, so the book could be fun for families to read together and use as a springboard to discuss what, exactly, adults do at work.
Youth Services Book Review
- Serafina Award Nominee, 2021
