WAKING THE MOUNTAIN

In this picture book by Fonseca and Junius, a girl and a cat restore the ecology of a broken world.

Milo, a fantastic, large white cat, is a storyteller, and in his Technicolor stories there are “flowers so vibrant they put rainbows to shame, and living species so diverse, nobody had the time to find and count them all.” These spinning flowers and glittering trees appear painted in shining, complementary colors and repeating patterns. But these are long gone now. Instead of Technicolor, the world is painted in muted blues. In the ecologically destroyed world inhabited by Milo and nude, brown-skinned and red-haired narrator Zura, the soil is so congested with plastic trash and cables that no plants grow. “People buried their mistakes, instead of burying seeds,” Zura reflects. Overnight, the mountain she lives in with Milo transforms, and spontaneous flowers rise from the wounded land. But a mission still remains for the pair. All human characters are shown naked, though with no visible secondary sex characteristics. Backmatter describes small actions people can take to combat climate change. If there is a critique to be made, it’s that the book makes change seem easy. But Junius’ paintings of bright spreading flowers with bright, folk-art tones make this regenerative fairy tale appealing.

Hopeful and magical; will instill determination and wonder in young readers.