Lucy & James Catchpole

Mama Car | Free colouring pages | Wheelchair, mother and child

Two to download: Mama in her wheelchair, and an expedition list

Mama Car – a picture book by Lucy Catchpole, illustrated by Karen George. Ideal for 3-6 year olds.

Mama Car colouring sheets - 2 colouring sheets from the picture book Mama Car on a wooden surface, next to a copy of the book. Sheet 1: Mama Car - a colouring sheet. The child sits on her mother's lap, in her manual wheelchair. Both look happy. Sheet 2: Colouring sheet. Expedition list - from Mama Car. Text reads 'expedition list' at the top, and 'banana! grapes! flowery bowl. bun! milk cup' next to each illustrated item.
Illustrations by Karen George

Mama Car is a young picture book – why I didn’t think of colouring pages earlier? Why shouldn’t children colour in pictures of a mother with her wheelchair and her child? Disability is a normal part of life after all – some parents are disabled. (And young children generally don’t see wheelchairs as shameful. That comes later.) I hope Mama Car will help normalise disability. What’s more normal than colouring in?!

Somehow, though, it didn’t occur to me – it was my daughters’ idea. We had a very small Mama Car party the day the book came out. The girls made a banner, put food in bowls, and my 9 year old decided colouring sheets would be ideal for the 5 year old’s friends. So we quickly cobbled some together on an app, and they were so popular I asked illustrator Karen George if she could put some better ones together. Of course, she was already three steps ahead.

I’m not going to devolve into one of those essay-length blog posts you find when you’re just looking for an onion soup recipe, but a quick PS: I put one of the first, dodgy sheets in my 5 year old’s book bag on her first day of Year 1, along with a copy of Mama Car for her class. At pick up, I was amazed to discover all the children had colouring sheets in their bags – some had even used lollipop sticks to make puppets out of them! Needless to say, I’m not unimpressed with her new teacher.

I’ve also put together teaching tips for those in the US, created by me and Katie Renker.

MamaCar_TeachingTipsDownload
  • Mama Car - a colouring sheet. The child sits on her mother's lap, in her manual wheelchair.
  • Colouring sheet. Expedition list - from Mama Car. Text reads 'expedition list' at the top, and 'banana! grapes! flowery bowl. bun! milk cup' next to each illustrated item.
Find the full Mama Car lesson plans here

Order Mama Car here

If you don’t have a copy of the book yet, it’ s available in most bookshops, and from Blackwell’s, who deliver internationally – with postage included in the price.

Mama Car from Blackwell’s
Mama Car from UK Bookshop
Mama Car from Amazon UK

We get a small extra % from these links, but also – I see the orders going through, and it’s lovely knowing somebody’s bought a copy because of something I’ve put online!

– Lucy Catchpole

Lucy Catchpole and her daughters, who are reading copies of Mama Car. She's a white woman with long brown hair, wearing a green linen skirt and sitting in her wheelchair (out of shot).

Mama Car is written by Lucy Catchpole, illustrated by Karen George, and published by Faber in the UK.

A separate US edition – published by Little Brown – is out in autumn 2025.

More reading

Cover of: What Happened to You? You're So Amazing! Mama Car, Owning It: Our disabled childhoods. Books by Lucy & James Catchpole

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