This is indeed an interesting subject. Sometimes I need things smacked on my head before I think about them...this is one! Wow, how few I found once I opened my eyes.

We have a few that we've enjoyed:

Goodnight Lulu: a story about Mom convincing her little Lulu that she'll fend off any evil creature she could imagine disturbing her sleep. An excellent strong-mother story.

Pirate Girl: about a young girl kidnapped by pirates and how she ends up being rescued by her Pirate Mom!

The Quilt Story: the history of a quilt handed down from mother to daughter.

Am I Big or Little?
The Hello Goodbye Window

Betty Doll by Patricia Polacco

In addition to many of the wonderful recommendations listed above, I have a few to offer, though I am saddened to realize there really aren't that many! :-( I'm not sure that any really scream out that they are mother/daughter books but they do feature those relationships and in a positive light.
Also, several are holiday-themed, but here you go:

Great Joy (Christmas)

The Trees of the Dancing Goats (Christmas and Hanukkah)

The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll

When Marian Sang The True Recital of Marian Anderson (historical)

Honorable Mentions:
Thanksgiving With Me
Lucia and the Light (good "girl power" book and she helps rescue her mom and brother)

I'll put my thinking cap on re: sons AND daughters books, too.

I once read one with a little girl helping her mother grow tomatoes in the garden, but I don't remember the author or title. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? I think they made tomato soup at the end.

I knew I could count on this group :) :) Keep 'em coming!

Thanks,
em

It is also a bit older, but when I was little I loved the "Frances" books by Russell Hoban. She has a good relationship with both parents in those, and eventually a little sister as well.

"Outside Over There" also features a mother and daughter, although the mother is pretty out of it (not noticing one daughter has been replaced by an ice sculpture and the other has flown away in a rain coat!).

Ok, interesting!

Books with Moms and Boys
I Love You the Purplest
Llama, Llama Red Pajama
Llama Llama Mad at Mama
How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? (in my opinion)
Always Copycub (in my opinion)

Books with Moms and Daughters
Stellaluna
Kiss Kiss! (in my opinion)

Jane Yolen is usually excellent, although I haven't had a chance to read Mirror Mirror yet. Along those same lines, Josephine Evetts-Secker has four anthologies of world folklore, each one devoted to a different parent-child combination: Father-Son, Father-Daughter, Mother-Son, and Mother-Daughter.

The Barefoot Book of Mother and Daughter Tales

The Barefoot Book of Mother and Son Tales

The Barefoot Book of Father and Son Tales

The Barefoot Book of Father and Daughter Tales

Okay, so this is oddly coincidental...I was just poking around on Jane Yolen's website and stumbled across this book:

Mirror Mirror: Forty Folk Tales for Mothers and Daughters to Share

"The bond between mothers and daughters, whether felicitous or contentious, is the theme of the folktales selected by this mother-daughter team. In their introduction, the first of a series of sharp-witted dialogues, Yolen, a storyteller and prolific children's book author, and Stemple, also an author and herself the mother of daughters, discuss the origins of their collection. Stemple was surprised to find that these old tales were not at all as she remembered them, and readers will share her experience. Whether a folktale is a variation on the story of Cinderella, Snow White, or Rapunzel, an unfamiliar tale about river spirits, or the promises of the sun to a barren mother, it reveals significant insights into the concepts of good and bad mothers and daughters, reward and punishment, physical versus moral beauty, and nature versus nurture. Representative of the oral traditions of Europe, Africa, Asia, India, and the Caribbean, these folktales remain fresh and open to interpretation, and Yolen and Stemple's discussions are, accordingly, lively and illuminating." -- Booklist

Sounds interesting to me!

Very interesting topic and something near and dear to my heart as I love finding books that feature a positive and loving mother/daughter relationship to share with my daughter! It is certainly easier to think of antagonistic examples, but here are a few positive mother/daughter picture books:

Sophie and Rose by Kathryn Lasky (little girl starts playing with mom and grandma's old doll. Mom makes an appearance, but the story is mainly about the girl and her doll, but that in itself is a rather maternal story. I have loads of stories that feature this kind of thing if you're at all interested)

Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Jim Aylesworth - Goldilocks is gently warned by her mother at the start and runs to mom and is comforted in the end.

Oliva by Ian Falconer - doesn't the mom pop up from time to time in these stories?

Dear Mili by Maurice Sendak is a very touching story about a mother/daughter relationship - a little spooky and morbid, but a great book!

Heckedy Peg by Audrey and Don Wood features a very strong mother and her seven children (boys and girls).

Blueberries for Sal - mother and daughter go looking for blueberries juxtaposed with a mother bear and her cub - neat story!

Brave Irene by William Steig - little girl risks life and limb to help her dressmaker mother deliver a dress on time.

There are a few Cinderella variations that feature a strong mother figure (not in the evil step mother role, but in the fairy godmother role). I can share some of those if you're interested too.

For another mother/son book:

I Love You Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt

Emily My book The Adventures of Willy and Nilly is a story about a brother and sister.Of course the older sister is a little bossy at times, but a great sister.It is a 32 page full color picture book.

Emily, I immediately thought of Mama, Do You Love Me? . It is rather old. Are the books you've noticed brand new books? I know I could think of many more examples but I thought of this one first.

I'm currently taking a class on representations of mothers in children's and YA books, and I've noticed an interesting trend in the picture books we've looked at: nearly all of them depict a mother with her son. (Apparently none of these women have daughters or more than one child.) We've looked at several picture books, including The Runaway Bunny, Are You My Mother?, The Kissing Hand, Monster Mama, Mommy? and Guji Guji. (Oddly enough, almost all the YA novels we're reading feature a mother/daughter or grandmother/granddaughter relationship. So if all these moms only have sons, where did they go?)

My question is . . . can anyone think of any picture books that feature a mother/daughter relationship? Or picture books that include both genders? Or any more books that seem to follow this trend?

I'd like to focus on picture books in this thread, but maybe we can start a YA thread if anyone's interested. I find this split really interesting and am currently trying to come up with theories to explain it :)