Billie and Bean in the Mountains

Are you ready for winter? Set for a day in the mountains? Billie has gone on the big bus with Mom and their black dog, Bean, to spend a day out in the snow. Her friend Svante is there too.

Billie is not that pleased to be told that she is too big now to be pulled around in the sled. Instead, she has been signed up for a new experience: ski school.

The slope is way too big and Billie doesn’t like going

on the ski lift. They practice slowing down and stopping.

Now they’re going to ski downhill on their own.

“Race you!” Svante shouts. Billie snowplows the whole way.

“Did you see, Mom?” But Mom hasn’t noticed anything.

Billie doesn’t want to go on the ski lift again.

Seeing a poster of a dog team pulling a sled gives Billie an idea. She harnesses Bean to a small red sled she has found leaning against some steps, and off she rides into the woods. It’s exciting at first, but then a big clump of snow falls on Billie’s head, she falls into a drift, and Bean and the sled disappear into the gloom.

It’s completely silent. Billie’s shoes are wet and

her fingers are cold.

Billie feels very alone until she sees a small animal who seems to want to show her the way out of the trees and back to the ski slope where she finds Svante and Bean and the sled. Was the little weasel in its winter white coat real? A mirage? A dream? It doesn’t really matter because Billie is now being reunited with her worried mother and warmed up with dry socks and hot chocolate.

They all board the bus for the journey home. The last page shows the bus with its lighted windows driving down a dark mountain road, with Billie’s rescuer, the white weasel, hovering over them in the night sky like a cloud.

This sweet Swedish import was originally published in 2023 as Billie, Korven och Fjallet. Text is brief to the point of terseness, but the words and pictures together paint a clear picture of the situation. The illustrations by the author depict simple images of Billie’s mountain adventures in clear colours. Several pages with numerous young skiers in more or less confident stances placed against wide expanses of white provide some comic relief. The scenes of an anxious Billie lost in the woods are executed in appropriately icy tones of white and shades of blue. Bean is shown as a friendly, if somewhat amorphously-shaped, companion to much of the action.

Billie and Bean in the Mountains would be a nice addition to a winter story time or as something to read with a young adventurer curled up on an adult lap. Earlier books in the “Billie and Bean” series are Billie and Bean at the Beach (www.cmreviews.ca/node/3322) and Billie and Bean in the City (www.cmreviews.ca/node/3530). Billie’s independent spirit shines through again in this visit to the mountains.