The Mountain That Wouldn't Move

Written and illustrated by Sandra Dumais

Owlkids Books

978-1-77147-649-2

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

April 2026 

 

Ah, perspective is everything. And for Bear, she sees everything negative in her life brought on by the shadow of a mountain under which her forest spreads. She intends to do something about it.

From The Mountain That Wouldn't Move, written and illustrated by Sandra Dumais

At a forest meeting, Bear tries to gather support from Rabbit, Cardinal, Fox, and other animals. Initially, the others are less concerned than Bear. But when she emphatically decides to move the mountain, they all agree. 

From The Mountain That Wouldn't Move, written and illustrated by Sandra Dumais

The mountain, a large grey landform with a cap of snow and a serene face of eyes, mouth, and rosy cheeks, is unyielding. (It is a mountain after all.) No matter which direction they push or how, the mountain stands still. Unlike the others, Bear cannot tolerate giving up. She comes up with some inventive schemes involving balloons, and sails, and even putting the mountain up for sale. It isn't until her friends carry her around the mountainside and upwards to see a different side and a glorious sunset, that the mountain that wouldn't move is accepted for what it is.

From The Mountain That Wouldn't Move, written and illustrated by Sandra Dumais

Montreal's Sandra Dumais takes a different perspective on perspective, by having Bear literally moved to see a different one. Asking someone to see something differently can't always be done effectively. However, putting them in a different viewpoint can do wonders to see a different perspective. Sandra Dumais's story may be read by children to help them be open to other points of view, but she also offers all of us the opportunity to see differently, beyond our initial outlooks and opinions. For children, it might be seeing others from a different point of view, or seeing circumstances like losing a game, being disappointed with their parents' decisions, or making a mistake from a different standpoint.

 

Sandra Dumais uses a variety of art media including pencils, gouache, digital collage and acrylic paint to create sweet and playful illustrations of animals who reflect frustration, joy, nonchalance, and even despondency. Bear is particularly emotive, drawing others into her disquietude, as is the mountain itself, an enormous gray rock, which is depicted as serene and even unassuming. Much of the story is told in the actions, or passivity, of Sandra Dumais's characters—yes, that includes the mountain—from their shapes, colours, and expressions.

 

The mountain may not have moved but when Bear finally did, a new perspective was found, and this made all the difference. 

Tickled Pink: How Friendship Washes the World with Color

Written by Andrée Poulin

Illustrated by Lucile Danis Drouot

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-104-5

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

February 2020 

I'm tickled pink by any book that supports diversity and acceptance of differences as the norm so I'm especially thrilled about a picture book that supports this message in as subtle and eloquent a way, as well as playful, as Tickled Pink: How Friendship Washes the World with Color.

When Zac the zebra and Poncho the panda are playing and Filippo the flamingo asks if he can join them, he is told that he is too pink, a colour which gives Poncho a headache. But when Filippa asks his parents, they tell him pink is the colour of kindness and happiness. So Filippo tries again.

From Tickled Pink: How Friendship Washes the World with Color by Andrée Poulin, illus. by Lucile Danis Drouot

From Tickled Pink: How Friendship Washes the World with Color by Andrée Poulin, illus. by Lucile Danis Drouot

Zac and Poncho are now rude to Filippo, telling him they don't want him to play and that "Pink doesn't mix with black and white." His grandmother shows him with her paints how wrong that idea is. So Filippo adds some black and white paint to his body and asks politely again. But, of course, Zac and Poncho continue to make excuses, about pink being the colour for babies who cry and princesses who are fussy.

From Tickled Pink: How Friendship Washes the World with Color by Andrée Poulin, illus. by Lucile Danis Drouot

Though Filippo gets support from his family, it's input from his shy peer, Ludo the lemur, that makes things right for Filippo.  Ludo recounts to Filippo all the wonderful things that come in pink: shrimp, salmon, bubble gum, cherry blossoms, begonias, peonies, petunias, and roses. And Ludo, who is black and white, says he would be pleased to play with Filippo. That play includes adding a little pink paint to the sleeping zebra and panda, who are not pleased, but also to other animals who are "tickled pink to go pink."

From Tickled Pink: How Friendship Washes the World with Color by Andrée Poulin, illus. by Lucile Danis Drouot

The story in Tickled Pink is far from black and white. It goes beyond a story of excluding those who are different. It demonstrates how much we all want to be included.  Filippo could have thrown up his wings and said, "Fine, I don't want to play with you, Zak and Poncho" but he didn't. He questioned his parents and his grandmother and his sister, all to help him grasp what being pink meant. But bullying and intolerance are incomprehensible, especially when "reasons" are given to explain the intolerance. I'm glad Andrée Poulin gave Filippo a quiet and insightful friend in Ludo who proves that it's not the black-and-white animals that lack understanding, but just one zebra and one panda. (Okay, there may be others out there, there always are, but it's clear that it's not all black-and-white animals.) For intolerance to be eliminated, everyone needed to see beyond the colours.

Artist Lucile Danis Drouot keeps her palette, until the very end, black, white, gray and pinks to emphasize the separation that Zak and Poncho highlight but she adds a playfulness in her animals' activities–vine-climbing, soccer, volleyball, and badminton–that embeds the message in gentleness and whimsy. A final spread resplendent in pinks brightens the world in happiness and friendship.

Like any racism or discrimination, the zebra and the panda could have arbitrarily chosen an attribute other than colour, such as non-feathered vs. feathered, or four-legged vs. two-legged.  But, like so many who discriminate, they chose colour. Fortunately, there are so many who don't see the colour, only the substance, and infuse our world with goodness and acceptance.

The Stone Heart: The Nameless City, Book 2

Written and illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks

Colored by Jordie Bellaire

First Second

978-1-62672-159-3

243 pp.

Ages 8-13

2017

Yesterday I jumped on The Nameless City bandwagon with my review of the first book in this trilogy (The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks, First Second, 2016) and am fortunate to have been able to read the second book The Stone Heart immediately. Now I just wish September 2018, the release date for Book 3 The Divided Earth, wasn't months away.

When we left the Nameless City in Book 1 of the series, Kaidu and Rat had helped save the ruler, the General of All Blades, and his son Erzi from assassination.  It is three months later and the General is proceeding with the plan of General Andren, Kaidu's father, to unite the factions of the Nameless City and beyond in one council.  Erzi believes the plan absurd but more so because he had always envisioned himself as the city's next ruler.

"You promised it to me." (pg. 19)

From The Stone Heart 

by Faith Erin Hicks

The secret of how the Northern People tunnelled through the mountain is at the heart of the power struggle and peace in the Nameless City and it seems everyone wants to learn all they can. There are legends of a great fire that could burn through rock and flesh but it is generally accepted that, even if the formula were discovered, perhaps hidden by the monks at the Stone Heart, no one now has the ability to translate their language.  Through back stories, we learn that Erzi's bodyguard, Mura, once lived at the monastery at the Stone Heart and was turned out after which she was rescued by Erzi.  She obviously harbours much bitterness towards the monks and this comes to play after Erzi becomes the new General of All Blades and the search for the formula drives them to storm the Stone Heart for answers.

From The Stone Heart

by Faith Erin Hicks

The clash of peoples who want different things for the Nameless City and for themselves is at the core of The Stone Heart.  Erzi's father is attempting to embrace all who live within the city and outside to help rule but Erzi will not have it, knowing the power he would lose.  How to balance the needs of a few over the greater good is key in The Stone Heart, and, needless to say, there is much violence, discrimination and power struggles as this balance is set askew. Faith Erin Hicks's story is both adventure and character study, a fine mix of "What's going to happen next? and "Did he really do that?"

It is only in The Divided Earth that we will learn how the Nameless City will be saved, and saved it will be surely with Kai and Rat at the front of the pack.

Moon at Nine

by Deborah Ellis

Pajama Press

978-1927485576

224 pp.

Ages 14+

For release April 2014

When the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979 and an Islamic republic ruled by the Ayatollah was established, it was initially seen by many as replacing an extravagant, secular, westernized regime with one based in Shia faith and clerical rule, albeit with an anti-Western sentiment.  But for a fifteen-year-old girl, Farrin, it means being extremely cautious about revealing her wealthy family's support of the Shah and her own enjoyment of American television and creative writing.  Though Farrin doesn't approve of her mother's parties with excessive food and prohibited drink, music, dancing and cigarettes, knowing that many Iranians were suffering, she worries for their safety should the Revolutionary Guard learn of their indiscretions.

Attending a school for gifted girls (transformed from one for wealthy families only), Farrin meets a new student, Sadira, who has been out of school caring for her father after the rest of her family was killed in a bombing.  Because Sadira's father, a cleric, had been imprisoned and tortured by the Shah's secret police, Farrin is apprehensive about sharing her family with Sadira, though she is drawn to Sadira's compassion and fearlessness, and her pro-woman views.

"...your girls need to go to school.  Men have run this world long enough, and they have made a mess of it." (pg. 65)

Recreating themselves as the "Demon-hunting Girls of Iran" (pg. 84) in keeping with Farrin's forbidden allegory about a girl fighting Iranian demons and beginning to feel the power of their friendship, the two girls make a pact that they would look at the moon at nine o'clock nightly so they could be together in spirit if not physically.

A visit to the Tomb of Hafez, the great Persian poet, and partaking in faal-e Hafez (fortune-telling based on randomly-selected text in the book of Hafez) intimates the course of Farrin and Sadira's relationship.

"No death invades a heart that comes alive in love:
Our immortality is etched in the book of life." (pg. 118)

While Farrin revels in the realization that she is in love with Sadira, their world begins to implode, with school spies informing on them, angry parents vowing to arrange marriages for each girl, and the Revolutionary Guard arresting them for deviancy.  Yet, through ensuing lies, interrogations, threats, assaults and imprisonment, Farrin and Sadira still have their Moon at Nine and the hope that they will be together again.

Deborah Ellis is Canada's most modest and accomplished author of social justice stories for young people, and Moon at Nine can be added to that auspicious collection.  Based on a true story, the girls' relationship in Moon at Nine is personal and precious but never explicit, unlike the merciless response of others to it.  Prohibited love may be ill-fated, but in the 1980s Iran of secrets, surveillance and suppression,  it was perilous.  Still, in Moon at Nine, Deborah Ellis thoughtfully embeds a sliver of chaste love into that dispiriting world and, without contriving an unrealistic happy ending, offers a glimmer of possibility.