Two At The Top

"𝗧𝘄𝗼 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝗽: 𝗔 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁" – 𝗔𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 ‘𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗺’

Most picture books about the Everest speak of Edmund Hillary as the first man to summit the mighty peak and Tenzing Norgay is usually seen as a ‘second’, with the post-summit narrative focusing on the philanthropic westerner working for the betterment of the Sherpa community. I absolutely adore this book because it rightly (finally) places Norgay and Hillary side by side, on an equal footing in the narrative.

We have often heard of books being “windows, mirrors and sliding doors” (Dr Sims-Bishop). Author Uma Krishnaswami is a proponent of a book being a “prism”, that refracts light, splitting it into component colours. She says that like a prism, “books can disrupt and challenge ideas about diversity through multifaceted and intersecting identities, settings, cultural contexts, and histories…they make us question the assumptions and practices of our own real world. They invite young readers and those of us who care about them to take another look through the window of a book, to question what it is that the mirror reveals.”

This picture book is a stellar example of a book turning into a prism – it is not merely meant for diverse readers (or for appreciating diversity), rather it forces all readers to reconsider the narrative in a new light. I hope this book finds its way to as many classrooms as possible so that readers know that Norgay and Hillary were equal partners who complemented each other, and any one of them couldn’t have summitted without the other.