The Tawny Scrawny Lion

If you have read even a few of my reviews on children's book, you will probably have noticed that I am working to backfill reviews for the works that my daughters loved to hear/read with me during their toddler years. This one was a treasure trove of lovely lessons.

Yes, there is a scary lion. But isn't life filled with scary things? And I do love bunnies, so the fact that the fearless hero in this tale was a rabbit made me smile. This story is an excellent lesson in open-mindedness...may we all have the temerity to give a scary stranger the benefit of the doubt. ( )

Now, like many stories of that era featuring "wild animals", the geography is complete nonsense. Lions coexist with bears and kangaroos. Yes, this is annoying. How annoying probably has a direct relationship to whether or not your beloved Mama read you this book when you were little :) And, like many stories of that era, the biology is also a bit skewed - Lions who eat carrot and fish stew will not be happy and plump, they will be even scrawnier because lions are obligate carnivores. Eating meat isn't something they do to be mean, it's something they do because they have no choice.

So, you know, if you're looking for realism, this is not the book for you.

If you're looking for a cute little story about how friendship tames wild beasts and makes everybody happy... well! This one is great. It's a bit wordy, so consider your audience. ( )

Interesting to read a book that so frankly addresses the idea of characters eating each other! Fun to read, though, and the ending felt satisfying. Carrot stew = possible secret pro-vegetarian propaganda? :) ( )

Genre: Fantasy
Age Appropriateness: Primary
Media: Acrylic?
Review: This story is of a lion that chases everyone in the jungle trying to catch his dinner. He runs so much that he is scrawny and the more he ate, the scrawnier he became. The animals delegated the rabbit to talk things over with the lion and the rabbit ended up training the lion not to chase after everyone in the jungle anymore, but to eat carrot stew like the rabbit family did. This is a fantasy because the main characters of the story are animals and act like humans by talking and such. ( )

One of the Golden Book classics, first published 1952. Any book that describes a lion as "jolly as all get out" deserves a go. ( )