A gentle adaptation of the familiar call-and-response game. Teacher shows a picture of a lion and passes out safari hats to her multiethnic students, who look to be in kindergarten. Magically, their classroom door opens onto an African terrain, and the hunt is on. They slog through mud, snap through sticks, climb trees, splash through a river and swish through the tall grass before reaching the dark cave, where all that can be seen is a pair of yellow eyes. After getting too close to the king of the jungle, back they go, triple-time. The soft colors in Mathieu’s pencil illustrations are attractive, and he offers a variety of facial expressions and action poses on the exuberant children in every two-page spread. While nothing beats or can replace the classic Rosen-Oxenbury collaboration, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (1989), the classroom setting this outing offers makes it a terrific invitation for young listeners to take “Lion Hunt” out of the story circle for some happy dramatic play. (Picture book. 3-7)
