MOUNTAINOUS

Mountains may seem still, but Kuo argues otherwise—and finds in that contradiction a surprisingly moving metaphor for growing up.

This second book in Kuo’s I Am Nature series, following 2022’s Luminous, operates on two tracks simultaneously. Lyrical, second-person text encourages young readers to imagine themselves as mountains—swaying, humming, growing inch by inch—while quieter expository text explains the science behind these actions (tectonic plates “shift and bump against each other” and over time “collide and push land upwards”). The balance between wonder and information is superb. Kuo’s digital illustrations deploy an energetic palette of oranges, purples, greens, and whites. The book, as well as its subject, has a timeless quality—at once geologically ancient and gently intimate. Spreads shift confidently in scale, from a child pressed against a train window gazing at Fuji-san to vast glacier fields and erupting volcanoes, yet the human figures (a brown-skinned adult and youngster, always warmly rendered) keep the emotional register close. The endpapers are themselves a quiet gift: wordless panoramic landscapes that ease readers into mountain terrain before the text begins and carry them gently out at the close. Backmatter includes a chart of 13 mountains from around the world—among them Kilimanjaro, Sagarmāthā/Qomolangma, and Lawetlat’la—with heights and a note acknowledging Indigenous and colonial naming histories and challenging readers to find all the mountains in the previous pages.

A lovely invitation to look up, slow down, and grow.