You’ve probably seen guest posts from Rebecca before; she’s written about the intersection of fatness and invisible disability here before. This time she’s talking about a children’s book that, honestly, I am going to go buy for myself.

“Sometimes when we are walking down the street together, children point their fingers. They say to their mothers, ‘Look how fat that woman is.’ / That makes me proud. If my mamma wanted to, she could pick up twenty kids at a time.”

That makes me proud. Y’all, I almost never open a blog post with a quote. But I couldn’t resist that one from My Great Big Mamma by Olivier Ka, illustrated by Luc Melanson. It came out a while ago in France but the translation into English is brand new.

The first-person narrator is a thin young boy. (The flap copy says he’s male but the text doesn’t. Could be a short-haired girl.) He is white and his mamma is white. Melanson’s beautiful round, soft, expressive digital illustrations feature oranges, creams, and greens.

This boy *adores* his mother. Not in spite of her fatness, and not some euphemized version of her inner beauty. He loves her in all her fatness.

“My mamma takes up two seats on the bus, but because I sit on her lap, we only take up the normal amount of space. Except for one thing. I’m more comfortable than anyone else. If all the bus seats were as comfortable as my mamma, well then, people wouldn’t be so grouchy.”

While I dislike that use of the word “normal” (dude, way to otherize fatness), I am in love with how matter-of-factly the narration describes Mamma using two bus seats. There is no mocking or textual amusement, and neither is there over-solemnity or concern. This mamma is no in-betweenie. She is death fat. And the text constructs her size and shape as right for her.

Let’s pause for that. THIS CHARACTER IS DEATH FAT, AND THE TEXT PRESENTS THAT AS RIGHT FOR HER.

The setting isn’t fatpol utopia, as shown by Mamma’s sudden announcement that she’s going on a diet. The boy finds this inexplicable. “I asked her, ‘Why do you want to lose weight?’ / So I’ll look prettier,’ she answered. That’s crazy. She wouldn’t be prettier. She’d be thinner, that’s all. And less cuddly, and less soft.” Way to appreciate some sweet material aspects of fatness!

Dieting Mamma cuts her food intake down to very small portions. “She didn’t enjoy eating anymore, you could tell. She looked sad when she saw what was on her plate. / No wonder. A little serving like that?” He is so troubled by her inadequate food that he snaps into action: “To show her how stupid it is to go on a diet, I decided to go on a diet, too. / No more salads because they make you slimy like a snail. / No more potatoes because your brain might turn into mashed potatoes. / No more hamburgers because you could become a cow. / No more yogurt because it’s too white and erases all the other colors.” (Awesome list and reasons, yes?)

And it works! “She said, ‘You don’t need to lose weight. You are perfect just the way you are.’ / I answered, ‘So are you. You are the most beautiful mamma in the world.’” Diet vanquished and bob’s your uncle.

Now, this book isn’t perfect, and it’s not all things. There’s a moment of thin-bashing I could absolutely live without: when Mamma foresees losing weight, the boy sadly muses, “I could already imagine myself with a skinny little mother. No chest, no tummy, arms like sticks. I’d be afraid of breaking her.” If I were reading the book aloud to pre-readers, I’d skip that bit. (With readers, I’d discuss and crit it with them.)

If you’ve got Freudian intimacy squick or particular boundary concern, this might not be the book for you. “Her kisses mean, ‘I love you so much, I want to eat you right up.’ / I wouldn’t even mind if she did eat me up.” Do keep in mind that most child readers won’t mind that as much as some adult readers might – or even notice it. Keep in mind the picture book tradition of Max in Where the Wild Things Are, who uses that exact metaphor to explain his need for independence. Independence and intimacy: both good, both worthy of books.

Also, fatness is a symbol here. “Everything about my mamma is big – her body, how much she loves to eat, her love. I want her to stay that way. / And I always want to be able to fall asleep in her soft arms. Because in there, it’s so nice and safe that nothing bad can ever happen to me.” Fatness esssentializes love and coziness and strength. Far better than symbolizing something bad! But I’d still like to see this book shelved alongside a bunch of books with fat characters whose fatness isn’t symbolic of *anything.* We need fat characters who are human and complex, with non-symbolic bodies. But given what we’ve got so far, in the picture book world? My Great Big Mamma pretty much rocks. Let’s give it some love, folks. Buy it indie or online for someone. Request it at your library.

And next time your fatpol independence needs a boost, remember this boy’s response to Mamma’s explanation for dieting, when she says she’s “‘only [doing] it because of other people’”: “Other people? What do other people have to do with it?”