When Mom’s Away

Covid-19 has affected the entire world. The publication of When Mom’s Away is timely as the global pandemic continues to impact the daily lives of both children and adults. In this story, a young girl feels sad and worried when her mother shares the news that she will not be able to stay in the house for a while. She is a frontline healthcare hero and, due to her high risk of being exposed to the virus, the garage has become her temporary living space to quarantine protect the family.

While the young girl enjoys spending days at home with her dad, she misses her mom when she is not around. She also misses being able to see her friends in class. Covid-19, also known as the coronavirus, has forced schools to switch to online learning in an attempt to prevent the spreading of the virus. In real life, this is still the case for many children.

There is nothing the girl can do to change her situation with her mom or the school, but she decides that what she and her father can do is wash their hands, wear masks when going out, and do kind things like grocery shop for immunocompromised neighbours.

This story is relevant for all young children in today’s world. Everyone, regardless of their age, has had to make changes and experienced loss of normalcy due to Covid-19. It is normal to experience feelings of worry and sadness like the young girl in the book. It is also important to try to stay hopeful and make the most of whatever the individual’s situation is. In this case, the young girl embraces cooking, playing games, and having her hair braided by her father.

I appreciated the reversal of traditional gender roles in this story. The young girl’s mom is the working parent, a doctor, and the father stays home to be the primary caregiver for their daughter. In this story, the mother also has a much more fair complexion than the father. Their cultures are not explicitly mentioned, but it is evident that they have different backgrounds. These details illustrate that inclusion and diversity are welcomed in today’s society.

Farida Zaman has been a freelance illustrator in various parts of the world. Her illustrations in this story are a mixture of full-page and smaller renderings. They include the perfect amount of detail to complement the text while allowing the opportunity for more information to be collected than what is written in words. For example, there is a dog in most pages, and there are music notes around the page in which the girl and her dad are washing their hands at the sink, yet there is no mention of any pet or music in the text.

When Mom’s Away is a heartwarming, relatable story that would make for an excellent addition to any school or home library. Children may enjoy reading it on their own or with a parent (perhaps it could be read aloud by a caregiving parent while their spouse is working during the pandemic).