Lion and Mouse
This book is a version of Aesop’s fables, Lion and Mouse. The fable tells a good story of kindness and friendship and not judging each other but we did not like this specific story. The pages preceding the part of the story where the friendship blossoms were too much for us to get through. The mouse is a bit rude, the lion is aggressive and uses language (like calling the mouse breakfast and calling the mouse ugly) that has to be explained to a little one carefully so as to not teach negative behavior. At this age, kids imitate and learn from these stories and there is too much here to explain away and hope they don’t learn. Halfway through the story it states that they were good to each other from that point forward, but it reinforces the idea that the behavior before that page was negative and shouldn’t be imitated.
The illustrations are drawn realistically and reflect the story well, but because of that from the first page my little one asked questions like, “why is the lion so angry?”
With that said, it seems like this specific book has been translated into English and it is possible the language may not be quite that stark or harsh in the original version.
Cautions: There is a lot of behavior here I would not read about to a little one. The lion is angry, aggressive and calls the mouse ugly. He also laughs in a mean way at the mouse, making fun of the mouse. The mouse is also rude in how he treats the lion.
