The Lion or the Mouse? (Who's Got Game?)
Novelist Toni Morrison joins her son Slade and illustrator Pascal Lemaitre for a lively interpretation of one of Aesop’s better known fables. The trio, who last teamed up forThe Book of Mean People, gives the blustery lion a chance to redeem himself after being fallen by a thorn--and lets readers see what happens when the mouse that rescues him lets his good deed go to his head. The moral of the story?  "Listen up!/ Listen up!/ No ifs, maybes, ands, or buts./ The biggest bully in the land/ Does what he likes, takes what he can.../ ...believes the sizes of boots and paws/ are all you need to make the laws./ But strong or weak, big or small,/ A giant or an elf.../ Is he who wants to be a bully/ Just scared to be himself?" Hip kids will nod their heads to the beat of the lion’s strut, and chuckle at Lemaitre’s cartoon-framed illustrations. Hip grownups will let young readers mull over the Morrisons’ (and Aesop’s) message about bullying at their own pace. (All ages)--Emilie Coulter