'The Lion and the Bird' by Marianne Dubuc

Even just to see the cover of this book is to fall in love with it. The pictures and the story they tell with just a small amount of added text are touchingly tender and thoughtful. A gentle lion finds a wounded bird who cannot fly off with its flock and makes it a bed in a slipper, nursing it back to health as they become close friends through the winter. Spring comes and the flock returns. Will the bird leave the lion to rejoin them? The story is full of subtle observations about attachment and freedom, about seasons in the year and also in relationships, about being true to your nature and about the strength of friendship, but these are not shouted and the reader is entirely involved in the characters’ immediate feelings. This might well become your favourite picture book.

October 2015