“You brat!”: Maternal Aggression as Women’s Empowerment in Three Recent Picture Books

Three recent picture books challenge the role of the impeccable mother. Their stories portray outbursts of irrational maternal aggression caused by limited mothering capacity. As these mothers depart from ideal stereotypes, they are shown to become monstrous in various ways. However, this paper argues that these narratives employ the monstrous towards what Jack Zipes envisages as “liberating potential”: in making the maternal monster lovable, mothers can be freed from unrealistic expectations and conformist social pressure.