Mama Zooms by Jane Cowen-Fletcher

Cowen-Fletcher, Jane. Mama Zooms. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1993.

Mama Zooms is an across town adventure that is sure to capture the attention of readers. The bright colors and detailed pastel and colored pencil illustrations tell most of the story with the text poetically flowing as captions. The young narrator shares the many adventures he and his mother take on her zooming machine, her wheel chair. The story follows the boy and his mother as they travel to different places around the town. The creative and caring boy uses his vivid imagination to turn everyday errands into something special. From zooming down the street as a race car, to zooming down the boardwalk as a wave, the zooming machine is the best way to get the boy and his mother to where they need to go. However, even though the boy’s mother has a zooming machine that makes her a race car, a wave, a train and an airplane, the boy is happiest when his Mama is just his Mama. The simple text is great for beginning readers and the illustrations are detailed enough to help infer the meaning of unknown words. The illustrations, which each take up a full page, are the primary focus of the book. The depictions of facial expressions and body language in the illustrations establish the emotions and feelings of the characters that are not explicitly mentioned in the text. The illustrations allow the reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps and questions that are left by the text. Mama Zooms is great for encouraging creativity and imagination in young readers and provides a starting ground for beginning readers to learn how to get involved in a book they are reading as well as exposing them to a way of doing things that they may not know much about.

Jane Cowen-Fletcher, author and illustrator of Mama Zooms, based this book on the interactions between her nephew and her sister who is in a wheel chair. The close connection and interaction with a family member in a wheel chair makes Jane Cowen-Fletcher an informed, insider author who is able to accurately portray the relationship that can exist between a woman in a wheel chair and her son. Jane Cowen-Fletcher shows the interpretation of living with a disability through the eyes of a young boy. What is important about the portrayal is that the mother is not glorified for her ability to carry out everyday activities such as going to the beach or traveling down the street. Instead, the boy’s imagination of his mother as different forms of transportation shows that it is not a horrible thing to have a mother in a wheel chair, but in fact it is an adventure. What makes the story accurate is that the way the boy views his mother’s disability is reflected in the ways children of that age view the world. Everything is something more than it is when children are young because their imaginations are strong. What is well done about this book is that the mother is not only shown doing things that are in her capabilities. She is also seen needing help when her family is at a park and she needs to be pushed up a hill because she cannot move up the hill by herself. Although she is seen needing help the illustrations still show a smile on her face and her family’s faces which implies to the readers that it is not shameful to need help nor is it a burden, but in the situation it is how the mother functions. The fact that people in wheel chairs need help in certain situations is something that should not be looked over. This book does a great job of incorporating both things that persons with disabilities can and cannot do. Jane Cowen-Fletcher does not separate the mother’s disability from her life nor does it show the mother’s disability getting in the way. Instead the mother is seen carrying out everyday activities and taking ownership of her disability as part of her identity. She is not ashamed but still knows the extent of her abilities and she seems to be portrayed as being happy with her life and her family. One part of this book that is especially inspiring is when the boy says that his mother has strong arms from all her zooming and it shows him sitting on her flexed arm. This illustration makes the strong statement that people who use wheel chairs are not weak and they are not helpless. This is a great positive message that needs to be stated for all to hear. This book would make a considerable contribution to any library and offers insight into a way of life that many never take the time to get to know.