My Mind Is a Mountain/Mi mente es una montaña

PreS-Gr 2–A preschool-age Black boy is full of emotions. Some of his emotions are small and some are huge. Sometimes he is happy or excited, and other times he feels sad, or even mad. Regardless of his young age, he knows what to do when he is feeling overwhelmed; the boy looks for a quiet place where he can sit and breathe. Salvadoran American author and mental health therapist Montenegro’s first picture book offers a celebration of emotions and a hint of mindfulness, guiding children to breathe and think of things that make them happy when in distress. The bilingual English-Spanish two- to four-paragraph narrative is set in brown for the English rhyming text and blue for the Spanish counterpart. The Spanish text moves smoothly, faithfully expressing the English wording and providing some vocabulary words. The modern curved line artwork is set in shades of blue, brown, purple, and green; depictions of different environments such as mountains, an ocean, a forest, and a city serve as backgrounds for the boy’s journey through his emotions. The art suggests a sense of movement with water running down a waterfall, fish swimming in the ocean, and birds flying in different directions, reminding us of the changing nature of emotions.