Androcles and The Lion
   Dennis Nolan
  1997 Harcourt Brace & Co. NY USA
   ISBN: 0152033556


Androcles runs away from his life as a slave into the merciless desert. There, hungry & tired, he takes refuge in a cave & comes face-to-face with a groaning lion. Though he is scared, Androcles removes a huge thorn from the lion's paw & is allowed to live for this deed.

This charming true-life fable, told two millennia ago by an eyewitness has been an old favorite of mine. I even portrayed Androcles in a school play.

I like Dennis Nolan's sepia-tone illustrations & his retelling of Apion's story about overcoming fear, from both a life of slavery & as supper for the lion.

I can't vouch that all wounded beasts will remember you if you relieve their pain. This story does, however, bring up a number of openings to talk about kindness to animals; wildness vs tameness; the life of a slave in various countries & times; the many ways societies have punished slaves for wishing to be free. How people can have a change of heart.

More from Dennis Nolan: Jane Yolen's Fairy Wings & William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
(08/06/00)

Rebecca