The Highest Mountain of Books in the World by Rocío Bonilla
My rating: 3/5 cats
this is a sweet book that i probably would have adored if i’d read it as a kid. as an old and shriveled adult, the story itself doesn’t do much for me: little boy is obsessed with wanting to fly; he tries to make wings, he asks for wings for christmas, and is finally given a book by his mother, a woman who, admirably, prioritizes reading over goo goo gah gah time:
and who assures him, There are other ways to fly, Lucas.
he’s a fast convert to this metaphorical, imagination-as-flight concept, and from that moment on, his obsessive pursuits are channelled into reading; he’s a total book addict, always wanting MORE,
until he has amassed, dunh DUNH—the highest mountain of books in the wooooorld, where, perched atop his stack, he ignores the elements and the dangers, and just reads, reads, reads.
it’s cute, and as someone who has been a booknerd since childhood:
look, i am reading in a tree!
i certainly approve of the message, but it just didn’t captivate or delight my grizzled heart the way other books intended for kiddies have. again, baby-karen would probably have loved this and read it in a number of different trees.
i liked the art a lot more than the words (worst booknerd ever, i know), and it was cute to track his reading journeys by the beloved characters depicted alongside him throughout the book:
it’s a medium three—pretty enough, but definitely one more for the kiddies in your lives.
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