Tell Me a Lion Story
by Kara Kramer; illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary    Candlewick    40 pp.    g
5/22    978-1-5362-1801-5    $17.99

“Dad…? Tell me a story!” Part parent-child bonding tale, part collaborative storytelling exercise, part interactive Mad Libs–esque game, this picture book stars an enthusiastic, if particular, story-loving child and a flexibly imaginative father. When Dad begins with “Once upon a time,” the child calls him out on it; that’s been done. Instead, the kid wants “a NEW story,” and one starring a lion. The father gamely starts again, but he doesn’t get far. First his big cat is too big (“‘His foot is bigger than this couch.’ ‘The lion doesn’t have to be sooo big’”), then too small, then its name (Fred) is deemed unworthy. Dad’s solution is for them to make up the story together, at which point Kramer incorporates fill-in-the-blank lines into the cleverly designed pages: “Right now, at this exact moment in time, there is a not-so-big, not-so-little lion named [blank].” Details of the creature’s subsequent adventures are determined by readers, with imagery in the sunny-hued, mixed-media illustrations depicting an outer-space voyage, but with room for narrative variety. On the last page, father, child, and a now-pj-clad lion crowd onto the couch, with the promise of more tales to come—or slightly different versions of this one.

From the July/August 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.