In Billie and Bean in the Mountains, the third charmer in Julia Hansson's Billie and Bean picture book series, all translated from the Swedish by B.J. Woodstein, city child Billie is once again facing an unbidden opportunity to flex her independence, this time on a ski slope.
Billie, her mother, and their dog, Bean, are in the mountains, where Mom has decided that her daughter is going to ski school--Billie is "too big now" for Mom to pull her around on a sled. Billie quickly determines that sled rides from Bean would be more fun than ski school. Not so fun: when they're in the woods, Bean gets freaked out by a mass of falling snow and runs off with the sled, stranding Billie. Finally, a small white animal (it looks like a stoat) shows her the way back. Billie resolves to keep her rescuer's identity to herself--the suggestion is that it's a secret that she, by virtue of her bravery, has earned the right to keep.
As the book's storyline commands readers' attention, Billie and Mom's relationship invites contemplation. Mom, who is obviously exhausted--she's parenting solo and "needs to rest because she's been busy at work"--has something to gain from her daughter's self-reliance, and this seems to at least partly fuel Billie's sulkiness about skiing. It's all there on the clearly articulated faces in Hansson's digitally aided watercolor-and-pencil art, in which primary and secondary colors assume well-defined shapes against pristine-canvas-like snow. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author