Creator Corner: Author and Illustrator Sandra Dumais
Welcome to Creator Corner, a blog series where we interview the creators of our recent and upcoming books. For this post, we interviewed The Mountain That Wouldn’t Move author and illustrator Sandra Dumais, whose book published April 14, 2026!
Owlkids Books: Sandra, why or how did you begin writing children’s books?
Sandra Dumais: As an artist, I work on so many different types of projects: comics, painting, writing. Children’s books are a way to combine my love of stories and writing, making images that let a child experience some kind of feeling; whether it be silliness, connection or delight, and because I really like kids I find it rewarding to try and make work for them that will make them laugh. My first book, Farm Crimes (Crimes à la ferme!) came about when I was approached by La Courte Échelle at a artisan fair and asked to pitch ideas for books! How lucky.
Owlkids Books: What was the inspiration for writing this book?
Sandra Dumais: I wrote this story first as a short story for Chirp magazine in 2021. I was given the theme of “mountain(s)” and when the editor and I chatted back and forth about possible ideas, she mentioned “maybe a story about an animal trying to move a mountain.” I thought that idea had so much potential for humor and ran with it! After I completed it I realized that maybe it was about the bigger difficulties we all were going through at the time (coming out of the pandemic), and how much we leaned on our communities and friends to get us through. I love the silly image of all these little forest animals trying to get this big grumpy bear out of her funk.
OKB: What themes or topics do you enjoy exploring in your illustrations?
SD: At the heart of all the different projects I do, we find community and friendship. I think friends and neighbors are the best thing we have. Also, there are always animals in my books—a big crew of animal buddies who help each other out (I am a big animal lover).
OKB: What was the most enjoyable part of bringing this story to life? What was the most challenging part of the process?
SD: The most enjoyable part was definitely spending time working on the characters. I got to spend hours gathering and looking at images of cute animals for reference—what could be better?! Since this was my first painted book, my challenge was trying to figure out my process for working with traditional methods and how to work in some elements of collage without getting too messy. I tend to be a very messy worker.
OKB: What do you hope readers will take away from this book?
SD: I hope that readers will see themselves in Bear—we have all had the experience of becoming stuck on a problem that we don’t have any control over.
OKB: What’s an interesting fact people may not know about you?
SD: I have a little bit of a secret identity—my real name is Sandra MacMillan (or Sandy). I’m an Anglo who grew up in Toronto but have lived in Montreal for over over 20 years. Dumais is my artist name (borrowed from my partner!). It can confuse people here when they find out I am Anglophone and have a very English last name.
Thank you so much Sandra for taking the time to do this interview and creating a wonderful book! We hope readers enjoy The Mountain That Wouldn’t Move as much as we did!
Grab your copy today!
