A Big Hug for Little Cub

Readers follow the adventures of a golden yellow lion cub from daybreak to nightfall. Grover narrates the cub’s journey in punchy couplets (“We run free./ So much to see./ Grasses sway./ I lead the way”) as he pounces after a brown bird (who doesn’t seem to mind all that much), rests under a tree with his lioness mother, and tussles with another small lion. Kightley’s paintings, if a tad generic in their nonthreatening sweetness, maintain a gentle sense of rowdy fun, and she tucks small details into each scene (a mole here, a beetle there) that invite quiet moments of seek-and-find interactivity. Ages 3–up. Author’s agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown. (Jan.)