Up, Up, Ever Up! Junko Tabei - Perfect Picture Book Friday #PPBF

Stunning and inventive illustrations team up with beautiful lyrical prose, to create an inspirational nonfiction biography, full of suspense, determination, and environmental stewardship. One that encourages everyone to reach for their dreams.

Book cover - woman, in mountaineering gear, climbing up Mount Everest.

Up, Up, Ever Up! Junko Tabei: A Life in the Mountains

Author: Anita Yasuda

Illustrator: Yuko Shimizu

Publisher: Clarion Books (2024)

Ages: 4-8

Nonfiction

Themes:

Determination, mountaineering, nature, conservation, and breaking stereotypes.

Synopsis:

Anita Yasuda’s evocative picture book biography about Junko Tabei, the first woman to summit Everest, is equal parts grit and grace. Dazzlingly illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist Yuko Shimizu.

Junko Tabei dreamed of a life climbing mountains. But men refused to climb with her. Sponsors told her to stay home. And gloves were not made to fit her hands. Junko, eager and unstoppable, wouldn’t let these obstacles get in her way.

Instead, she planned an expedition to summit Mount Everest with an all-women team. Battling icy peaks, deep crevasses, and even an avalanche, Junko refused to give up. She climbed step by step . . . up, up, ever up!

After summiting the world’s tallest peak, Junko took on a new challenge: protecting the wild spaces she loved for future generations.

This gorgeously illustrated celebration of a trailblazing climber who shattered gender stereotypes invites us to dare to reach our dreams—no matter how big.

Opening Lines:

Junko’s hill was her entire world.

Under its sakura trees, she’d lie on the

cool grass, listening. Stories of mountains

drifted all around her until silvery

domes and icy peaks unfurled

as far as she could see. As the

mountains took shape, a

dream formed within

Junko: to climb.

What I LOVED about this book:

This is such a lovely lyrical and engaging opening, setting up the seed for Junko's life-long desire to climb mountains. And the colorful and inventive illustration is truly stunning! I agree with Anita Yasuda that any of Yuko Shimizu's illustrations, made using a Japanese calligraphy brush and black India ink and then digitally colored, would make amazing framed prints. I love the way the dream of climbing mountains blooms in her head (hair) as the cherry blossoms softly drift about her.

Internal spread - a girl reaching up to her mother asream of climbing mountains are shown super imposed on her hair as the cherry blossoms drift about her.

Text © Anita Yasuda, 2024. Image © Yuko Shimizu, 2024.

When Junko was ten, she climbed Mount Chausu with her class. This solidified both Junko's love of mountains and her soul-deep drive to climb them, as "a slope bristling with boulders urged: Up, up, and ever up!" Creating a wonderful refrain (and great title) which perfectly encapsulates Junko's life.

Internal spread - Junko and class mates climbing on a rocky mountain surface with multiple steam vents and golden birds flying around.

But she had lots of hurdles to overcome to realize her dreams. First, finding a climbing club which accepted women. When she found one, she also found a partner who loved mountains, too. Junko then "knitted other women climbers together, just as a ridge joins mountaintops. Like her, they wanted opportunities above the clouds. Eager and unstoppable" these women joined Junko in plotting to climb Mount Everest. Second, no sponsors would take mothers seriously and gear was only made for men. So, they created their own gear from whatever they had. I love Yuko Shimizu's use of traditional textures and cultural references (flags, furnishings, and architecture) of Japan and Nepal. And her playful inventiveness - such as in showing Junko's transition from work week to climbing weekends and this image of Junko's journey to Nepal.

Internal spread - Junko's husband and daughter wave from a cloud covered Japanese landscape. As Junko and her fellow climbers leap, through the wake of an airplane, over to Nepal.

When the first all-woman team arrived in Nepal, over 500 sherpas, mothers, "porters, aunties, uncles, younger brothers, and big sisters" assembled to help carry their gear. Could their dream actually come true? Suddenly, after weeks of climbing, Mount Everest "awoke," trapping the team in an avalanche. Refusing to give up, they held on until the sherpas dug them out. But they only had enough oxygen for two. Junko and "her guide, Ang Tsering Sherpa" continued on. After all she overcame, could she do it? Junko pushed "Inch by inch. Hand over hand. Step by step. She climbed UP UP, UP, AND EVER." Until she became the first women to summit Mount Everest!

What did she do then? "Like a mighty glacier, Junko continued carving paths for women, one peak at a time." Her love for mountains and the environment never diminished. She climbed mountains around the world and later returned to Mount Everest to clear gear and trash left on the slopes by numerous expeditions. She continued her advocacy by planting apple seedlings in Nepal and advocating for the protection of mountain ecosystems and responsible mountaineering and tourism. The author's note and timeline flesh out Junko's additional mountain conquests and the depth of her advocacy. This is a visually stunning, lyrically poetic nonfiction biography full of suspense, determination, and a deep love of nature about the first woman to summit Mount Everest.

Resources:

make your own mountain climbing mountaineer or create an easy mountain picture ("Bob Ross for Kids").
pretend your packing for a climb up Mount Everest. Make a list, or draw a picture, of everything you think you'll need. Double check your list against this packing list. Did you pack everything?

what's a dream of yours? What might stand in the way of you accomplishing this dream? How might you work around these roadblocks?

read an NPR story about women in Nepal transforming Mount Everest trash into crafts.

If you missed my interview with Anita Yasuda, on Monday, find it (here).

This post is part of a series by authors and KidLit bloggers called Perfect Picture Book Fridays. For more picture book suggestions and resources see Susanna Leonard Hill's Perfect Picture Books.