The lion the the little red bird by Elisa Kleven

This is not a word I use very often but The Lion and the Little Red Bird is quite simply a beautiful book. I picked it up in a splendid bookshop in New York called  McNally Jackson  because last year one of the new teachers in my school mentioned Elisa Kleven.  We have several of her books in our school library.  You can see many her titles here.

Elisa has a very decorative style of illustrating.  Her pictures almost sparkle with tiny flowers and and water droplets. On the back cover of this book on review says “readers will want to feel the pages.”

If you need a special book to talk about colours or friendship or the wonders of art then grab this lovely book. The ending surprised me and I hope it might surprise you too!

Here is the full quote from Kirkus Reviews

"A little red bird meets a lion and wonders why the end of his tail is a different color each day. The lion can't understand the bird's chirping questions, but he likes her cheerful company, and so they wander amiably together through fields and hills and splash in a mountain lake. One night, the gentle lion rescues the bird from a storm and brings her into his warm cave, which is decorated with paintings of the places they've seen together--paintings that the lion has made using the end of his tail as a brush. This joyous tale about the wordless discoveries of friendship is illustrated with mixed-media collages so richly colored and textured that readers will want to feel the pages. "