We Were Made for Each Other

From Montreal publisher The Secret Mountain comes a book originally published in Beijing in Chinese (2015) as The Perfect Encounter.

The main character of the story contained in this prettily-designed small volume is a cheery young pig named Little Sun. On every page, he lives up to his name by showing his friendly demeanour and sense of optimism about everything in his life. The supporting cast includes a mouse, a giraffe and a bear, a true storybook menagerie.

The book has no real plot. Rather, it is a series of vignettes somewhat like those “thought for the day” calendars. Some of these are endearing:

Mrs. Cow, who is sitting across from Mouse and myself,
enjoys sad stories more than anything else.
They always touch her very deeply. Without making a
sound, I offer her a tissue. Sometimes we learn more
from sorrow than happiness.

And:

The movie was so much fun and the popcorn was delicious.
My dear Little Mouse, we need to learn to enjoy
every moment of happiness. It will help us face life’s
little worries with confidence.

A few are rather puzzling:

Some situations always warm the heart.

Several are incomprehensible without the accompanying illustration. These pictures are gentle, clear watercolours that show the figures in active poses with minimal background detail and lots of white space.

An added feature is an audio recording of the text, accessible through the publisher’s website (using only the extension included at the back of the book but not as a link from the site, which is a bit awkward). The narration is done by Canadian singer Julie Nesrallah in a pleasantly modulated tone. The words of the story scroll along under the pictures with the voiceover, but this progresses like the closed captioning of a television show, without proper line breaks or any punctuation, and so it is not that useful for a new reader.

We Were Made for Each Other reminded me of one of those gift books for adults who want to smile at something pleasant and innocent, rather than being something that would capture the interest of most young children. It is a sweet little handful of pictures and homilies, but most library collections can probably do without it.