Mother's Day 2026

This year, Sunday, May 10 was Mother’s Day! Given the surge in searches surrounding Mother’s Day, it’s safe to say that a good number of us spent the weeks leading up to it (and some after) endlessly looking up ideas for gifts and scouring the internet and local bookstores for the perfect book.

Here at BookNet, we wanted to find out which categories and books ended up getting picked up for moms across Canada!

Top selling Fiction categories for Mother's Day

To start, we looked into which categories under both Fiction and Non Fiction saw the most growth in market share. To calculate the percentage change, we used the average units sold three weeks prior and compared to units sold in the week of Mother’s Day.

Since a big, high-selling title in one year can have an significant impact on the performance of a category, we also compared the genres for the same period last year to gauge consistent performance.

Unlike when we last looked at books around Mother’s Day, the categories were not all dark subject matter!

The Fiction categories that saw the most growth for Mother’s Day were:

Subject	2026 percent change	2025 percent change
Fiction / Romance	66%	46%
Fiction / Women	43%	16%
Fiction / Coming of Age	38%	17%
Fiction / Literary	28%	53%
Fiction / Science Fiction	22%	22%

Top selling Non Fiction categories for Mother's Day

Using the same method as above to calculate percent change, we then looked at the top selling Non Fiction categories to find which one of them saw the highest growth. While the percent changes for Non Fiction weren't as high as for the Fiction categories, we can see still see some sizeable changes.

Subject	2026 percent change	2025 percent change
Non-Fiction / Games & Activities	27%	53%
Non-Fiction / Family & Relationships	26%	229%
Non-Fiction / Nature	19%	51%
Non-Fiction / Comics & Graphic Novels	13%	30%
Non-Fiction / Religion	9%	77%

Keywords

Aside from sales trends, we also wanted to shed some light on the metadata that surrounds Mother’s Day books. Using BiblioShare, we looked at how many times the terms "mother's day", “gift for mom”, or “mother’s day gift” were used.

We found these keywords were used 8,391 times on a total of 8,205 ISBNs, spanning 1,553 BISAC categories. The top 25 BISACs that used the Mother’s Day keywords were:

1. FICTION / Women (374 EANs)

2. FICTION / Literary (339 EANs)

3. FICTION / Family Life / General (323 EANs)

4. FICTION / Romance / Contemporary (218 EANs)

5. FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / Motherhood (205 EANs)

6. JUVENILE FICTION / Family / Parents (191 EANs)

7. SELF-HELP / Motivational & Inspirational (146 EANs)

8. SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Happiness (129 EANs)

9. FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / General (124 EANs)

10. JUVENILE FICTION / Social Themes / Emotions & Feelings (123 EANs)

11. FICTION / Coming of Age (120 EANs)

12. BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women (113 EANs)

13. BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs (109 EANs)

14. FICTION / Friendship (104 EANs)

15. FICTION / Romance / Romantic Comedy (96 EANs)

16. FICTION / Family Life / Marriage & Divorce (85 EANs)

17. FICTION / Sagas (83 EANs)

18. FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense (82 EANs)

19. FICTION / Small Town & Rural (81 EANs)

20. MIND, BODY, SPIRIT / Inspiration & Personal Growth (77 EANs)

21. HUMOR / Topic / Marriage & Family (75 EANs)

22. SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women's Studies (67 EANs)

23. JUVENILE FICTION / Humorous Stories (66 EANs)

24. JUVENILE FICTION / Family / General (64 EANs)

25. RELIGION / Christian Living / Spiritual Growth (60 EANs)

Top five titles the week of Mother's Day

To try and get a sense of the kind of books that tend to perform well around this time of year, we looked at the top five selling titles over the last five years. It’s important to note that while we look at this data to try and get a sense of any recurring trends, it’s difficult to attribute sales for these titles during the week of Mother's Day entirely to the day itself. With that in mind, here are are the top selling titles from the week of Mother’s Day.

2026

1. Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune 🍁

2. Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune 🍁

3. Fury Bound by Sable Sorensen

4. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

5. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

2025

1. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune 🍁

2. Every Summer After by Carley Fortune 🍁

3. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, & Sawyer Robbins

4. Every Salad Ever by Greta Podleski 🍁

5. Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

2024

1. This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune 🍁

2. Dog Man: the Scarlet Shedder by Dav Pilkey

3. Funny Story by Emily Henry

4. The Women by Kristin Hannah

5. Karen's Sleepover: a Graphic Novel by Katy Farina

2023

1. Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune 🍁

2. Homecoming by Kate Morton

3. Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas under the Sea by Dav Pilkey

4. Spare by Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex

5. Magnolia Table, Volume 3 by Joanna Gaines

2022

1. Book Lovers by Emily Henry

2. Cat Kid Comic Club: on Purpose by Dav Pilkey

3. Heartstopper #1: A Graphic Novel by Alice Oseman

4. It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

5. Better off Dead by Lee Child & Andrew Child

We discovered that nearly half (40%) of the top selling titles from the week of Mother’s Day belonged to the Romance BISAC category, making it the most popular genre being sold during this time of year. In second place, at 16%, were Comics & Graphic Novels across YA and Juvenile Fiction. And the only Non-Fiction categories to make it in these lists were Cooking and Self-Help.

Though all five top-selling titles in 2026 were Fiction, we can see a similar trend towards Cooking and Self-Help titles in the top selling Non-Fiction titles during the week of Mother’s Day this year.

Top selling in Non Fiction 2026

1. Oh She Glows Salads by Angela Liddon 🍁

2. Strangers by Belle Burden

3. Every Salad Ever by Greta Podleski 🍁

4. Mom, I Want to Hear Your Story by Jeffrey Mason

5. The High Road by Hank Idsinga 🍁

And that’s what Canadians have been buying their mothers! Looking for more data on what Canadians are reading, buying and borrowing? Visit our research page to look at our most recent reports and keep an eye out for the upcoming ones for more up-to-date information! For subject specific data, read the blogs from our Subject Spotlight series. And sign up to our newsletters to have all this delivered straight to your inbox!