Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: lion

  • If I Were a Lion

    If I Were a Lion

    Being brave and fierce and wild and free sounds a lot like a lion to me. The character in this Children’s picture book, If I Were A Lion wants to be all of these things. As well, she wants to say, “No smooches until I am ready.”  The young one wants to have many voices, loud and soft, happy, and sad. She would always be brave, except when she was being careful. Being a lion would mean that you could eat cake any way you wanted.

    Then the girl thinks, maybe she is a lion because she already has so many choices, and she can shine. The pathways open to lions and little girls are very similar. Both hunt with their pack, both can fight for dominance (although girls have less claws), both can relax when their bodies are tired, and both can roll around in the mud.

    Kitty Black and Giuseppe Poli have shown many children in various situations. The inclusion of handicapped children is clever, in showing they can also be fierce. The artwork consists of outlines and sketches suggesting movement and action. The humour adds an extra dimension to the story. “If I were a lion I would not eat like a lady.”

    The ending is highly appropriate suggesting it’s alright to be a lion but it’s also good to be ME.

  • Safari Pug

    Safari Pug

    Pug is back in his third adventure, but it is one he really would rather not be having, because it means that he has to meet a Lion! And he is not very happy.

    Lady Miranda has had a bad dream, where she thought here were lions in the wardrobe, but of course there was not, but she scared not only herself, but Pug as well. He was sleeping soundly on the end of the bed as always, when her yelling woke him up.

    When the morning finally came, Lady Miranda decided that she and Pug, mostly Pug, needed to go and meet a Lion, at the Safari Park, of course, not in Africa. She called for a picnic hamper to be prepared, asked her Running Footmen Will and Liam to bring around the Sedan Chair and off they went.

    But when they got there the lady at the gate would not let them go in as the Sedan Chair was not a car and it was far too dangerous. While they were trying to figure out how they could get in to meet a Lion, a Very Important Person arrived and they went in with her.

    And that is where the adventure really begins because it turned out the Very Important Person was not very nice and was up to absolutely no good at all.

    Of course Pug and Lady Miranda become involved in the problem and somehow, in spite of finally getting to meet a real life-sized Lion, win the day.

    A fabulous fun read for early readers and a great adventure as well. The illustrations by the talented Eglantine Ceulemans simply add to the fun.

  • Saving Cecil’s Pride.

    Saving Cecil’s Pride.

    Cecil was no ordinary Lion; he was a personality, a member of a specialist research project overseen by Oxford University, and the star attraction at the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. He was thirteen years old when he was killed, by being lured away from his territory by fresh kill.

    He was then shot with a bow and arrow, finally being killed some thirteen days after he was first shot by an illegal ‘hunter’, a man who was out to be a big hero; to bag a trophy!

    Cecil’s senseless death caused outrage worldwide and once again drew the focus onto this barbaric practice of hunting for so called sport, by people who have absolutely no care, compassion or desire to protect, simply satisfy their own base desires at all costs.

    Cecil was the head of his pride and father to six cubs at the time of his death. Simply another tragedy on the one already caused as the survival of the cubs was precarious to say the least.

    Musicians of the world united to create compilation series as a project to try and help towards the conservation of the remaining lions of Africa, and other endangered species, the only way they could, with their music.

    Released late in 2015 the album, a three disc CD, has something for everyone from world-fusion to  ambient new age groove, world beat and the way out there experimental music, all reflective of what is being done in Africa to try and  conserve and preserve so many species which are bordering on extinction.

    Artists such as Louis Colaiannia with Auroa’s Light, Sherry Finzer with Mystic Haze, Mystified contributes Pride Groove and Paz de la Dame Sauvage with At the Water’s Edge, Robert Otto’s A Place Of Hope and the final track of so many, The Beginning with Rocky Kej are just some of the 42 artist who have contributed. Many of the track titles reflect the emotion of the contributor, their thoughts and feeling about this atrocity.

    By supporting the artists who have given so generously, you can have a part in saving some of the wildlife protected under the auspices of the Big Life Foundation, a conservation organization working in the ground in Africa to protect wildlife.

    The message is, get out there, buy a copy and become a part of the much bigger project; that of protecting endangered species by supporting those on the front line of wildlife protection to create innovative and effective solutions.