The mountain makers - Algar

ranges, you must know that sleepy giants are hidden.

giants made mountains. Would you like to wake them up and discover their magic job?

LAZARILLO AWARD FOR ILLUSTRATED ALBUM

Jorge del Corral

In distant times of unicorns, griffons and dragons, those

The Mountain Makers Alberto Pérez

There where ignoramuses just see common mountain

Lazari l Award lo F Illustr or ated Album

Alberto Pérez

Jorge del Corral

For Noemí, with love.

For Pablo, so he’ll stay in the mountain business, it’s a sure thing.

Alberto Pérez

Premio Lazarillo 2009 al mejor álbum ilustrado. Formaban el jurado Aitziber Alonso, Marta Chicote, Manuel Craneo y Rosa Mengual, y actuaban como presidenta M. Jesús Gil y como secretaria Ana Cendán.

Esta obra ha sido publicada con una subvención de la Dirección General de Libro, Archivos y Bibliotecas del Ministerio de Cultura para su préstamo público en Bibliotecas Públicas, de acuerdo con lo previsto en el artículo 37.2 de la Ley de Propiedad Intelectual.

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Licencia editorial por cesión de Edicions Bromera, SL (www.bromera.com).

© Alberto Pérez Vilacampa, 2009 © Dibujos: Jorge del Corral, 2009 © Algar Editorial, SL Polígon Industrial I 46600 Alzira Impresión: Fernando Gil 1ª edición: noviembre, 2010 ISBN: 978-84-9845-215-0 DL: V-3760-2010

Jorge del Corral

The story I am about to tell is as true as it is old.

So to doubt my word would be to admit that you are

“Well,” you may ask, “how do I know if a story

“ignoramuses”.

that’s so old is truly true or just made up?” Well, if

As I was saying, I found myself standing in the library of this

you honestly have so little faith in me, I’ll tell you how: I

illustrious wizard, a bit bored, I must say, because as you can

found this story in the library of Freston the Wise, which, as

imagine, most of the spells in the books there are about turning

you know, holds nothing but the truth. To doubt my story is like

things into gold – lead, earth, air and so forth. So, bored as I was,

doubting that Man ever set foot on the moon, or – I don’t know – like

I set about thumbing through a thick volume of stories, all of them

saying that two plus two isn’t four but five or six instead!

true, as I mentioned before, and it was there that I came upon the true story of the mountain makers.

The story begins a long time ago, long before the geographers took

Giants are just like you and me, except, of course, that they’re

the flat edges of the Earth and stitched them together to make the

a hundred or a thousand times our size. If they lift an arm, they

strange ball we live on today. In those days it was commonplace

block out the sun; if they take a step, they cross the sea; if a hair

to come across fantastical creatures of all kinds: unicorns, griffons,

is lost from one of their heads, a mighty beam falls from the sky;

dragons, and of course, the grandest and most extraordinary

and when they shake out their

creatures of all: giants.

dandruff, the valleys for miles around are buried in the downpour.

But except for that, giants are just like you and me, even if they eat a whole ox for a snack and drink a whole lake in just one sip. But except for that, I insist, they’re just like you and me. Of course their enormous size would certainly call for respect and caution. And whenever a man or any other creature saw their silhouettes outlined on the horizon (like gigantic, moving mountains) they would run and hide.

A wise move, of course, because though we have no record of giants attacking people, one never knows if one might accidentally end up as an appetizer in a giant’s evening meal.

At any rate, the giants in this story happened to be quite peaceful

Like all intelligent creatures throughout history, the giants worked

and easy-going. Any complaints from their neighbors were

for a living. And if you think about how they would gobble down

generally about the noise (giants have loud, bellowing voices) or

oxen and drink up lakes, you can imagine their job would have to

a fear of getting stomped on (a single stomp of a giant’s foot can

be monumental, humongous, colossal‌ And so it was: they made

wipe out an entire village). No one dared to get cross with the

mountains.

giants!

But who, you may ask, could possibly be in the market for a mountain or a mountain range? Who would want to buy a thing like that? No doubt you think you’re very clever indeed because you would never ever buy something like that, but listen, all you clever-clogs, the kings who were building their countries back then were very much interested in acquiring hills, mountains, lakes, rivers, plains, valleys and all that sort of stuff. Don’t you see everything was just getting started?   And so it was that under the orders of this or that king, raj, emperor or mandarin, the giants built hillocks and hills, mountains and mountain ranges.