My Mum’s Growing Down

This is a collection of poems by writer and performer Laura Dockrill with amusing line drawings by David Tazzyman. It is written in two parts, the first as if by a boy writing about his mum and the second reporting what his mum says. The main premise, addressed directly in the opening poem and title of the collection, is that instead of being a ‘sensible’ grown up, his mum is getting, or at any rate behaving, like a young child, because in her view ‘Life’s too short for boring-ness, it’s time we had some FUN!’ In My Mum is a Gamer we discover her prowess with computer games and in a later poem are surprised with her football skills. This is a non-conformist mum, who can’t cook and is not so good at cleaning, she is an individual with highly distinctive dress sense which her son applauds in My Mum does not dress like a mum and that’s good and rather unusual hair styles which he seems less keen on. There are closely observed situations here such as the way adults frame requests to children eg to ‘pop’ to the shops, or even ‘pass that exam, win that prize’ in My Mum makes everything sound easy when actually it’s not. Many older children will relate to a number of poems about how embarrassing mums can be in public, in this case at a restaurant, the cinema, a museum or even worse on parents’ day at school. These poems celebrate the unconventional, they are full of warmth, humour and loving advice, ‘you get on with being you and I’ll get on with loving you.’