The Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen

I first chanced on this book at the library 4 years ago when my daughter was 3... Somehow, I love such illustrations where the characters look real and not overly abstract that one is unable to tell a lion from a caterpillar... Why? I guess cos I want my kids to know that a lion looks like so (i.e. like a lion, with its majestic mane, and its heavy body) and not like a caterpillar...

Initially I was concerned that my girl would not be able to sit through the entire story, which is relatively long for a 3 year old... But she did and she loved it.

So I tried it again on my son when he turned 3 and the story did not fail to appeal...

Yesterday we read the book again to my then 3 year olds who are now 7 and 4, and the story still retained its magic.  We thoroughly enjoyed the active voice which was used in the story.  Reading the story was like reading a play, the main characters being the narrator, Mr McBee and Miss Merriweather, and of course the Lion.  It allowed drama mama me to use different intonations, voices, emotions in the reading so as to make it more appealing to my lil ones.  However,  as the story is quite long, I had to skip some sentences so as to retain their attention for their entire story.  

From the story, kids would be able to learn values like the need to follow rules and to adapt and change where necessary, keeping promises and of course appropriate behaviour while at the library. So, this story of a lion who padded into a library and became the library's best friend deserves 4.5 stars!

What about my 2 year old you ask... Well she said, "I want to see.. I want to see" in the midst of playing with her Elmo ;-)

Pssst... This book became a permanent addition in my library when I realised that loaning it is just not enough for my kiddos and hopefully my grandkiddos...

Pssst... (again) Do you know that there is an actual library which has the same statue of the lion in the book... We found out about it yesterday... And now the kids wanna go over there to see whether there is indeed a lion in it... Make a guess where the library is ;-)