Parents and children who share this book may wish to begin their own brand of family storytelling. Soman's lively, warm watercolors alternate between the bedtime rituals of the girl and her mother, and the loving vignettes from ``Mama's'' childhood. She has written numerous childrens books including Tell Me a Story, Mama, Shoes like Miss Alice, Looking for Red, A Cool Moonlight and Lily Browns. '' Johnson captures perfectly the way children make stories they love their own. '' ``You were lucky, too, Mama.'' `` Yes, I was. It won her the School Library Journals Best Books award in 1989 and gave her the confidence to write. The girl is curious about the love between generations: ``Did Grandmama squeeze you tight when you were her little girl, like she does me?'' `` Uh-huh. Tell Me a Story, Mama was Johnsons first picture book. You weren't afraid of her, though.'' `` No sir, I was not, '' is Mama's firm answer. About the story of a neighborhood woman who used to scare Mama (as a girl) and her sister, the daughter says, ``She was so mean that she used to holler out her window at you and Aunt Jessie when you passed her house every morning. Mama's memories of her own childhood have been told to her daughter so many times that the girl has made them her own bedtime litany she tells her mother the stories and her mother reassures her that she has the story right.
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