From a Mountain's Eyes

About the Book

From a Mountain’s Eyes is a fiction book that entertains young children’s imagination and also introduces them to various values of life, like discovering the world around them, respect, friendship, family, and teamwork. This book is about the extraordinary adventure of a little rock, being the main character. Little Rock comes down a mountain to explore the world around him. He is young, lonely, and curious. His unpredictable encounters with the elements of nature—the tree, the flower, the sea, with living creatures such as the bee, the bird, the ants, and the human being—reveal the importance of discovering the world surrounding us in the first instance while creating new relationships. In the following chapters, young readers learn about feelings and acceptance and the importance of welcoming someone as a new friend or as a new member of the family—“Little Rock, we want you to know that you are most welcome in our family,” as shown in chapter 3. Teamwork is another key point underlined in chapter 2, when Little Rock meets the ant family. Discovering how our environment adapts to the changing climate is also fascinating when readers see how ants work hard to find a place to store their food before winter comes. The book, describing how each element of nature has its specific importance, like “I’m a busy, busy bee, and I make honey” in chapter 1, also gives a simple introduction to the change in seasons, from autumn to winter: “The leaves have turned yellow, red, orange, and brown” in chapter 4 and “Snowflakes would start to fall.” Another important element that young readers will come across is security and happiness when they read how Little Rock finds shelter with the rock family in the last chapter of the book.

About the Author

The author, Cindy Duval, a novice in the world of writing, was born in Mauritius Island, in the Indian Ocean, where English is the official language. She developed a distinct, secret interest and love for writing during her studies. She speaks three languages: French, English, and Creole. She has been working in the administration field for years but changed career on her five-year-old son’s demand. She entered the education field without thinking twice. Her love for English intensified with years as she lives her passion, which is to work with children as a monitor, educator, and teacher. Being a Canadian resident since July 2011, she continues to live her passion as she prepares her license to teach English as a second language in Quebec. Her book, From a Mountain’s Eyes, is the product of her final exam project she shared with a group of students. Her writing style is simple, clear, and attractive as she targets young readers. She is fascinated by young children’s imagination, and she is always inquisitive to know how they see the world around them. She believes that children’s minds need constant and rich entertainment to sharpen their imagination and, hence, enhance their creative development. Being a mother of two wonderful children herself, she values education, innocence, creativity, imagination, love, family, and humbleness. This is what she wants to point out in her book. Cindy particularly considers reading as a key factor in young children’s everyday life and as a pleasure to discover as we, adults, read to our children. She shares her unique voice through her masterpiece as she feeds young readers’ imagination by highlighting values like what is nature about and its importance and what are living creatures here for and what is their specific character while stressing on the importance of family and teamwork.