Review of “Mount Tremper has a Temper” by Thomas O'Grady & Karen Chapman

Score: 95/100 (9.5 out of 10)

Mount Tremper has a Temper by Thomas O'Grady & Karen Chapman is a children's book that captures the undeniable appeal of the Catskill Mountains in the state of New York as well as telling a beautiful and powerful story about uniqueness and individuality!

The book centers around the titular Mount Tremper, one of the smaller of the Catskill Mountains (“not even in the top 100 highest”). Tremper is described as a small, tea-cup shaped valley surrounded by bigger mountains. You really get the sense of the oppressive atmosphere that Tremper lives in.

It is personified as harboring some anger, frustration, and resentment (having a “temper”) at being smaller than the other mountains and, thus, being overlooked by visitors. It is notably excluded from the “3500-Foot Club” since it is less than 3500 feet in elevation. There is also a strong sense that Mount Tremper has experienced this exclusion and hard feelings for a long time since he is called “little old Tremper.”

However, Mount Tremper is special, unique, and beautiful in ways that he has long overlooked. For example, Mount Tremper is home to many incredible plants and animals, namely squirrels, eagles, butterflies, rattlesnakes, ravens, deer, and even bears! It also provides one of the best hikes in the Catskills, which is great exercise. It is home to two lean-tos where people can camp when they visit. It even has its own rock quarry!

We really enjoyed this book and learning about the Catskills!

What we enjoyed the most about this book were the illustrations by Karen Chapman! They were some of the best of the season! In particular, we enjoyed the illustrator's animal art. The black bears are absolutely adorable and the rattlesnake is menacing yet cool. The raven and the squirrel are expressive as they react to Tremper's temper.

We have a slight feeling that this book gained a lot of momentum, but never seemed to hit its stride. It took a while to get going, then ended rather abruptly. Maybe we were just enjoying it so much that we wanted it to go on for another 4-6 pages!

When you look at the “Fun Facts” section, it really does seem like a lot had to be trimmed down either due to time or budget. There are a lot of things in that section that could have been expanded on and actually add some context to why Mount Tremper feels the way that he does. For example, the section talks about how Tremper's brother has a historically-significant fire tower while (we assume) he does not. And, as we said before, the description of Tremper being a “small, tea-cup shaped valley surrounded by taller mountains” is a much more impactful description than what is presented in the main section of the book. The other thing we noticed (and we're not sure if this is really a criticism) is that Tremper is probably the least cute and appealing of all the mountains that are personified. He has the face of an angry, obese middle-aged man for much of the book. This kinda makes sense because of his age, anger, frustration, and resentment. We were just wondering how children might respond (negatively or positively) to a character with a cuter or more appealing face.

Really, though, it's not a big deal.

This book is great, well-illustrated, and effective!

Check it out on Amazon!