A BIG HUG FOR LITTLE CUB

A day-in-the-life tale of a lion cub and his mother.

From morning until night, the little wild cat enjoys pouncing, playing, exploring and preening while his momma looks on and offers a helping paw when needed. The youngster encounters a fellow cub and a couple of meerkats before hunkering down with momma for the night. Each double-page spread (on thinner-than-normal board-book stock) provides a different view of the grassland setting in both bright and muted earth tones. Kightley’s paintings, which have the look of acrylic on canvas, are deft at capturing the sunny yellow cub and his playmate in motion. This is a kinder and gentler savanna. While the little feline appears to stalk a bird under his mother’s guidance, this feathered friend does not become a meal on subsequent pages. In gentle rhyming couplets meted out in one or two couplets per page, the first-person-narrator cub describes the action: “We run free. / So much to see. / Grasses sway. / I lead the way.”  

As realism is not the object here, these lions are cute, cuddly and toothless, safe for sharing a crib with baby.