MOLE IN A BLACK & WHITE HOLE

Mole in a Black & White Hole by Tereza Sediva is a beautiful, cleverly-designed tale of faith, trust, and friendship.

Mole is afraid to leave his hole. It's deep underground and it's dark, but it's his home, and he's never known anything different. The only companion he's ever had is the bright pink chandelier that hangs from his ceiling (which readers see is the bottom of a growing radish). Chandelier describes life above ground to Mole, trying to convince him to leave the blackness of his hole to see the colors of the world. One day Mole ways up with a sunbeam streaming into his hole, only to realize that his one and only friend has been plucked and quite literally left a hole in his life. It's with Chandelier's words ringing in his ears that Mole bravely digs his way up and into the world for the first time.

From the get-go, this book exhibits top-notch design. The spine runs along the top of the book rather than along the lefthand side, so readers experience the story by flipping pages from bottom to top rather than left to right. This allows Sediva to use the gutter of the book as the soil line: everything below the gutter is underground and dark, while everything above the gutter is colorful and full of possibility. Incidentally, the physical boundaries of Mole hole's never cross the gutter, keeping Mole quite literally confined to the bottom of the book and bogged down in his small world. When Mole evolves and finds himself ready to go above ground, he physically crawls from the bottom of the book to the top, and it's this act of bravery that expands the boundaries of his hole beyond the gutter of the book and onto the top page, full of color and open to everything life has to offer. 

Mole in a Black & White Hole published earlier this week from Thames & Hudson!

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