Mole, who lives in a small hole beneath the earth, lives a life with few hues: Everything in his home is black or white with just a few exceptions. His hands and feet, which are bright pink, are the same color as neighboring worms and his best friend, Chandelier.

Mole digs and digs, dreaming of finding something colorful at the end of one of his tunnels, but day after day, he is disappointed. One day, as Mole continues to search, he finds a pink radish poking through the top of his tunnel like a chandelier.  Chandelier has a view that goes beyond Mole’s.

Delighted with the knowledge that the world isn’t just black and white, he starts to talk to his chandelier about the world above.

He learns that the world is full of colors!

As Mole listens to Chandelier describe life aboveground, he imagines bright clothes, red roofs, vibrant green trees, pastel flowers, and the blush of the sun as it sinks through the sky.

AND THEN…

The next morning, Mole wakes to find Chandelier is gone.    Chandelier has been harvested from the garden, leaving a hole in Mole’s ceiling and also in his heart as he grieves for the loss of his friend—the only color he’s ever known.

With Mole’s friend being uprooted,  Mole must conquer his fear of what lies on the other side. It is then that Mole remembers what chandelier had said to him.   “There is so much color and so much life to be found. But to find it, you must search for it.”

With Chandelier’s words ringing in his ears, Mole bravely digs his way up and into the world for the first time.

He is so upset at first that it takes him a moment to realize how bright his home has become.  With Chandelier’s words ringing in his ears, Mole bravely digs his way up and into the world for the first time.  He crawls out of his black-and-white hole into the world above and discovers a place more colorful than he ever dreamed possible.

The view up there, of course, is revelatory for the sad Mole, opening possibilities toward a joyous conclusion.

**********************************
**********************************

Note:
I love the design of this book and your family will as well.  The spine runs along the top of the book rather than along the lefthand side, so we experience the story by flipping pages from top to bottom rather than left to right. This allows Tereza 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. The physical boundaries of Mole’s hole 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.