Mother Goose. Old Mother Hubbard. The old woman in the shoe who had so many children. The fairy godmother. The wicked stepmother. From earliest childhood, mothers are key characters in the literature we hear and then read.

Drawn with broad brush strokes that are easy for young minds to understand in nursery rhymes and fairytales, the literary mother-character’s complexity grows as we do.

On Mother’s Day, we celebrate great mothers – those in our lives and the lives of others. In literature, widely celebrated mothers include Margaret March (“Marmee”) in Little Women, Ma Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie and Molly Weasly in the Harry Potter series.

Great mothers are further elevated when we realize how many really bad mothers populate the world … or so it would appear from their frequent portrayals in all forms of story-telling. Some that come to mind are the mythological Medea, the fictional Corinne Dollanganger in Flowers in the Attic (a rotten apple that did not fall far from the tree) and Mommy Dearest herself, Joan Crawford (as described by daughter Christina Crawford). Bad characters seem to interest us more, so it makes sense they inhabit so much of the literary landscape.

If you are fortunate to have a great mother – or your know one – show her she is special this Mother’s Day by presenting her with a book!