Book: Aunt Alice and The Lion
Reviewed by: Seromo Mochatsi
Review made possible by: Penguin Random House South Africa
When Vusa, Themba and Gracious hear that Aunt Alice will be visiting them, they are overcome with excitement.
It is not until they depart to meet their aunt at the station that the real excitement and story begin.
The three children find their Aunt Alice sitting on a branch in a tree, holding her suitcase on her lap.
To the confusion of her family, she explains that she is hiding from a lion she had apparently seen prior to the children’s arrival at the station.
Aunt Alice’s hysteria amuses her family, as they are convinced that her talk of a so-called lion is all in her mind.
On the first night of her visit, Gracious wakes Themba, after hearing what she believes was the roar of a lion.
Themba, however, dismisses the sound as Aunt Alice’s snoring.
It is at this point in the story that my four-year daughter – Faith – asked me, as I read the story to her: “Mommy, what did she hear?”
With every activity during Aunt Alice’s visit, she is convinced that the infamous lion is hiding around every corner.
On the morning outing to pick maize meal with the children, Aunt Alice has another hysterical reaction to her paranoia about the lion lurking behind the trees.
This is, of course, dismissed by the children as “nothing”.
At this point of my rendition of the story, Faith is overcome by laughter about Aunt Alice’s hysterics.
“Why is she [Aunt Alice] screaming, Mommy?” asks Faith.
When the day arrives for Aunt Alice’s departure, back home, the children and their father accompany Aunt Alice to the station, where they bid her farewell, and she jokingly says: “I enjoyed my visit, but now I need to go back to the city to rest.
Thankfully there are no lions there.”
As the train departs, the children and their father turn around, only to see what Faith reacted to by exclaiming: “There’s the lion, Mommy!”
It turns out that Aunt Alice was not suffering from a moment of insanity: the lion actually exists.
The children, frightened, stand clinging to their father, who prompts them to stay calm.
The lion gives a mighty “Rooaarrrr”, as I describe it to Faith.
Gracious, now in a panic screams the loudest screeching sound (much like the one little Faith makes in her temper-tantrum moments), which, not only makes the others forget their fear, for fear of the screaming, but it drives the lion to run away as well.
Laughter leaves the children’s father’s mouth as he jokes: “Aunt Alice was right.
There was a lion, but I don’t think he will ever come back.”
The story is lovely for young children to listen to, while it is being read out to them.
Judging from my daughter’s reaction to my rendition of the story as I read it to her, it is even easy to understand.
I would recommend this book as a bed-time story, or even if you are trying to start a library collection for your little ones – to encourage the love of books from a young age.
The book is story-telling at its best, and it reminds me a lot of the kind of old-tales my dad would tell me when I was younger.
It is thoroughly enjoyable for children.
