Fictional mothers that I love

Published on: 09 March 2018 Author: Sophie Kinsella

We asked bestselling author Sophie Kinsella - whose children's book, Mummy Fairy and Me, illustrated by Marta Kissi, is about a mum with magical powers - to tell us about her favourite mums in children's books.

My Mum

Anthony Browne
Doubleday Children's, Penguin Random House Children's Books

What a wonderful mum fills the pages of this delightful picture book. Whether she's being a ballerina or an astronaut, she's still the same lovely, reassuring mum.

The Railway Children

E Nesbit
Wordsworth Editions

Mrs Waterbury, the mother in this classic tale, is the most wonderful role model. It's only as an adult that I properly realized what an ordeal she goes through as her husband is wrongly cast into prison. She's resolutely cheerful and strong: counseling her children, helping the afflicted, writing stories and buying buns for tea when she sells one. She's awesome.

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott
Puffin Classics

What list of fictional mothers could leave out Marmee? Kind and intuitive, she leads her four daughters with gentle firmness, giving them a belief in education, compassion and themselves, while bravely waiting news of her husband, away in the civil war.

The Harry Potter books

JK Rowling
Bloomsbury

The matriarch of the Weasley brood, Molly Weasley, may look cosy but she's a force to be contended with, whether she's bustling her children off school, or fighting the forces of evil.

The Little House in the Big Woods

Laura Ingalls Wilder
Egmont

Laura Ingalls Wilder's Ma is another mother whose worth only became fully apparent to me as I returned to the books as an adult. The challenges she had to face! Snow, hunger, illness... Throughout all the family's pioneer hardships, she stays cheerful and reassuring and makes a tiny, bare cabin as homey as possible.

The Ramona series

Beverly Clearly
HarperCollins

I adore Ramona Quimby and her patient, sometimes weary mother, Mrs Quimby. She deals with Ramona's trials and tribulations with such wisdom, kindness and humour.