If I Were a Lion

by Sarah Weeks, Heather M. Solomon (Illustrator)

Overview

I'm sitting in the time-out chair because my mother put me there. She said, "You try my patience, child! I do not like it when you're wild."
Wild?
Who me?
That is so absurd.
How could she even use that word?
If I were a lion.
I'd growl and roar
And knock the dishes on the floor...
AND if I were a bear...
If I Were a Lion is a book for every child who's ever been sent to the time-out chair — unjustly...or otherwise!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780689848360
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	03/01/2004
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.14(d)
Lexile:	AD440L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Sarah Weeks has written many books for children, including If I Were a Lion, Paper Parade, Angel Face, So B. It, and Two eggs, please. She lives in New York City. When Sarah can't get to sleep, she goes through the alphabet in her head, trying to think of people she knew in elementary school whose names begin with each letter.

Heather M. Solomon was named a Publishers Weekly Flying Start for Clever Beatrice, winner of the Charlotte Zolotow Award. She is also the illustrator of Clever Beatrice and the Best Little Pony by Margaret Willey and If I Were a Lion by Sarah Weeks. She lives in New Mexico with her husband, daughter, and son, who especially love to share joyous secrets.

Editorial Reviews

"Wild? Who me?" asks an impish girl who is exiled to the time-out chair. There, she compares her behavior with that of the truly untamed: "Am I howling? Do I bark? Rummage through the trash at dark?" Howling dogs and a bear gnawing on a sofa cushion make the narrator seem not quite so beastly after all. Solomon's mixed-media illustrations have a high level of energy that perfectly suits the book's unruly menagerie. (Ages 4 to 6)
Child magazine's Best Children's Book Awards 2004

A little red-haired girl defends herself against her mother's accusation of wildness in a very inventive way. With her round face just this side of caricature, she protests being in the time-out chair in the rhymed text. "Wild? / Who me? / That's so absurd. / How could she even use that word?" While one might wonder what this little tyke is doing using words like that (and "precocious," later on), we listen as she describes kinds of wild: like a lion, breaking dishes and scaring the cat; greeting visitors with outstretched tongue like a frog; rummaging through the garbage like a coyote. In each case, the animal in question, in fine, full frenzy, appears in the picture frame of a perfectly normal house, wreaking the described havoc in gorgeous pinks, lavenders, and aquas. In the end, she's pushed them all into a box that she, in the time-out chair, is sitting on, as apt a metaphor for controlling one's behavior as can be envisioned. Tremendous read-aloud possibilities. (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews

"Sarah Weeks's rambunctious angel in If I Were a Lion will have readers roaring with laughter. Parents should love reading it too, as it's bound to evoke memories of their own childhood antics. Heather Solomon's wonderfully textured creatures make you want to touch each one of them." — Betsy Lewin, Caldecott Honor-winning illustrator of Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type

From the Publisher