MY BROTHER'S LION

A young boy and his stuffed lion go on an outer-space voyage in this picture book from debut author/illustrator Burleson.

The narrator recollects a time when his older brother told him a story about how he fixed a broken constellation with the help of his magical toy lion. The lengthy, rhyming couplets reveal how, “when a glowing thread…cut loose from a constellation” came into the older brother’s window, he and the lion turned a bed into a sailing ship and set off, rescuing several creatures (such as a “banana man” and a mechanical dragon) along the way. When the pair was about to reconnect the thread, they faced the “dangerous villain” Scissorat; later, the lion stayed behind to protect the constellation, and the boy said goodbye, knowing the lion would watch over him. Each miniadventure could easily have been its own tale; the locations and characters are intriguing and imaginative, and Burleson’s cartoonish illustrations with gorgeous backgrounds invite readers into the fictional world. The couplets are long enough that the poetry isn’t obvious, but the rhymes are solid and consistent. Burleson’s story celebrates creativity while offering the message that someone loved is never really gone.

A touching and whimsical rhyming bedtime adventure with engaging images.