By Marianne Dubuc
This is an excellent beginner French book. There's very little text. Basic sentences with few descriptive words aid the pictures to tell the story. Sometimes there are no words at all, and I can just talk about the scenes in French using words that my daughter knows.
There are a few sections of the story where the passage of time is represented abstractly, like with this tomato plant growing throughout the summer. This is a great way to meaningfully convey both the quiet loneliness of the main character as well as the idea of summer changing to fall.
It's a really great teaching tool for literary techniques of showing a story indirectly rather than listing facts.
The minimalist nature of the book means that the emotions of the characters are felt more poignantly by the reader. I actually wasn't sure whether or not the book was going to have a happy ending when I first read it. I was anticipating that the lion would just end up alone and it would be sad. (spoiler: it has a happy ending.)
I don't think it would be possible to dislike this book.
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