Grown-Up Approved: Books, Games, and Puzzles for Mom and Dad

Reader-reviewed books and music for Mom and Dad.

By Melissa Carter and Mika Rekai

The Memory Place

An artist and poet reconciles with her schizophrenic mother, and uncovers a storage locker filled with her paintings, diaries and photos in this eloquent and pity-free memoir. The unfolding story asks how you give up on the person you love the most, and where responsibility lies when a mother can’t parent her girls, and the daughters can’t care for their mother.

“This would be hard to read if the author was less talented. Each chapter is a separate recollection, and it helps carry the emotional weight. Worthy of sharing. – Ellen Falstaff, mom of Violet, 3, Sydney, N.S.

Grown-Up Approved: Books, Games, and Puzzles for Mom and Dad

A Thread of Sky

When Irene Shen is widowed, she plans a postcard tour of China for herself and her sister, mother and daughters. Every chapter of this character-driven novel is narrated by one of the women, each at a different tipping point, but all facing the same question of how to reconcile the past while managing the expectations of mothers and the compromises of motherhood.

" It was interesting to read the different perspectives of three generations of women traveling together, and I was moved by this mother's attempt to hold her adult family together." - Erica Johnson, mother of Andrew, 14, and Courtney, 11, Winnipeg.

Penguin, $20

Simon and Schuster, $29

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