Knudsen, M. & Hawkes K. (2006). Library Lion. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.

Cover

This book won the following awards: Publisher Weekly Cuffle Award, School Library Journal Best Books of the Year, Child's Magazine Best Books of the Year, NAIBA Best Picture Book of the Year, and many more. This award winning book is about a lion coming into a library. Everyone is shocked at first. Mr. McBee tattles to the head librarian, Miss Merriweather, but she does not care because the lion is not breaking any library rules. There is no rule against a lion being in the library, so everyone eventually gets used to him being there. One day he roars loudly though, and he gets in trouble because there is a rule about being quiet in the library. He promises to follow the rules from then on, so he continues coming to the library and eventually becomes friends with Miss Merriweather and helps her. One day she falls, and in order to get Mr. McBee to come help her, the lion breaks the rules and roars. Because he needed to be loud in order to save Miss Merriweather, it was okay for him to break the rules. In the end, the lion continues to be a library friend for all.
The pictures in this book are beautiful. They look like colored pencils. I liked how the words were set off in a frame on one side with a picture on the opposite side.
My initial idea for this book would be to read aloud to a young group of students before their first trip to the school library. The class could have a discussion after reading the book about what they think library rules are. After their first visit to the library, this could be used for a writing activity as well because I could have students write through drawings and words they know to tell a story about an animal of their choice in the library
The following is a link to an awesome resource that I found containing lesson activity ideas for this particular story! : http://www.candlewick.com/book_files/0763622621.kit.1.pdf From arts and crafts to acting out plays to suggested other stories, this website would be perfect to incorporate.