Lion, Lion by Miriam Busch (review)

“Lion!” calls the little boy into the distance (seconded by his little mouse friend), and though a lion does indeed turn up, he doesn’t seem to be what the boy is looking for. The lion, on the other hand, is aggressively looking for lunch; the boy sweetly offers him some possible tidbits, but the lion rejects all of them based on the annoying adjacent fauna (the porcupine-infested mushrooms are “too prickly,” the hummingbird-bedecked flowers are out because “feathers make me sneeze”). Armed with this cunningly acquired information, the boy (along with his mouse) dives down the lion’s gullet to retrieve his beloved cat, Lion, and with the help of his knowledge and his animal buddies he gets them all sneezed safely out of the lion’s maw. The plot’s a little strained in places, but the playful twists on expectation are amusing, and folktale-experienced readers will recognize the tropes of the innocent yet sly trickster and his support system. The mixed-media art evinces some interesting fresco-like textures in its granular pigments, making the lion’s tawny fur and cinnamon mane a pettable froth. Draftsmanship, however, is more irreverent, with the lion’s face goofily anthropomorphic in its beetle black eyebrows and rolling eyes, while there’s a Sendakian flair in the self-possessed African-American kid who’s quietly getting the lion’s number. This could be a jumping-off point for discussions about what kids would do for their own pets, and it would be an excellent way to introduce younger listeners to the deliberate subversion of expectations.