The Illustrated Mum

The Illustrated Mum is a children's novel by English author Jacqueline Wilson, first published by Transworld in 1999 with drawings by Nick Sharratt. Set in London, the first person narrative by a young girl, Dolphin, features her bipolar mother Marigold, nicknamed "the illustrated mum" because of her many tattoos. The title is a reference to The Illustrated Man, a 1951 book of short stories by Ray Bradbury, also named for tattoos.

Wilson and The Illustrated Mum won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, judged by a panel of British children's writers. By 2001, translations had been published in Finnish, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, and Catalan. Delacorte Press published the first American edition only in 2005. In 2025, a sequel to the book is set to be published, Picture Imperfect.