In the summer of 1995 I was lucky enough to go to South Africa, where I gave a series of lectures in linguistics and a series of talks on children's writing at universities in Johannesburg and in Cape Town. As part of that trip, my family went to a reserve park, and the lions fascinated me. I read dozens of books about lions. I also visited the Philadelphia Zoo and the National Zoo in Washington DC, sitting for hours in front of the lion enclosures. And I watched videos of lions in the wild.
Lions have expressive faces.
The photos that Elena took are marvelous. I can look into those faces and feel like I'm climbing inside the heads of the beasts. Lions also have a range of sounds they make. In fact everything about the book rings with authenticity. Each of your settings, from Persia to India to France, rings true, as does your handling of language and custom, setting and geography, religion and animal behavior, and literature and gardening.