Chouette; Claire Oshetsky (USA): ECCO, 2021.

Towards the end of this incredible tale, the protagonist Tiny, is on a bus observing people outside her window and thinks, “…I can see them all out there being themselves, with no one in the world to tell them to be someone else instead.” This quote encapsulates this feminist story about motherhood, society’s push for conformity, as well as its active destruction of nonconformity, and the endless struggle for survival. Oshetsky presents a much dismissed view of motherhood, far from the ideal of bliss often placed on this role. Tiny is questioned at every turn in her mothering of her ‘nonconforming’ child and there are very few individuals who understand her or assist her along the way. The story is the battle she faces in honoring her child, honoring her own needs, and struggling to not become someone else. The story also plays with the intersection of humans and the wild world and this theme is a great accompaniment to the problems Tiny and her child face.