THE LION & THE MOUSE by Jerry Pinkney

Pinkney creates a brilliant version of Aesop’s classic tale of a magnanimous lion and a helpful mouse. With beautifully detailed watercolor and ink depictions of the plot, the story is carried through playful and artful pictures.  The lion is large and imposing, covering a full spread from far left to far right margin, but the detailed expressions convey a personable and warm creature. While some images are precise, almost scientific illustrations of animals, such as a flying owl, others are lively series of industrious people and animals, such as a gnawing mouse. The book is a bounty of African vistas, with front endpapers that show a full landscape with giraffe, zebra, ostrich, and elephants, and back endpapers that depict a family of lions. The wordless story with detailed art fosters quiet rumination for the youngest thinkers. Here literacy is about observations, visual clues, and details. Pinkney punctuates the story with onomatopoeia in text that is incorporated in the illustrations, allowing for interactive shared storytime. Is it persnickety to wish that the story would have been completely wordless? This book is sure to be a classic with stunning artwork and “reads” like a master watercolor portfolio.

(wordless picture book, fiction, age 5-10)