Help the Kind Lion

February 21, 2024
Grades K-2 This early reader series opener introduces young mammal medics who have the magical ability to shrink themselves to microscopic size to help animals in distress. After consulting with a tired lion who cannot run or play and examining x-ray images, Viv and Sanjay get to the heart of the problem. Gearing up in high-tech shrink suits that boast robot-tool arms, they spring into action with the rallying cry, "Inside Scouts always on call! To fix big things, we get super small." While repairing the lion's leaky valve, the duo provide an immersive tour of the circulatory system. Short chapters are told through color-coded speech bubble dialogue, with some sound effects ("Lub-whoosh-dub!") appearing in background details. Mahaney's colorful digital-cartoon illustrations chart the Magic School Bus-like journey via veins into chambers of the lion's heart. Back matter includes anatomical facts accompanied by labeled diagrams, easy-to-follow instructions for drawing an "I am Kind" badge, and a conversation starter readers can take to heart: "How can you make someone else's day better?"

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2023
In this STEM-centric series kickoff, young rescue workers shrink down to microscopic size to repair a lion's leaky heart valve. Aimed at fledgling readers, this first episode sends young Viv and Sanjay into an ailing lion's circulatory system to discuss the heart's general functions while taping up a torn cardiac valve. Despite its stilted dialogue--"The lion needs our help." "We will help the lion!"--the tale has a lively cast. Along with enjoying the interior exploits of these fantastic voyagers, audiences will have effortlessly absorbed a modest but fundamentally sound quantity of anatomical information by the time the two are sneezed out in globs of lion slime to regain their normal sizes. Mahaney follows suit by kitting Viv and Sanjay out in cool techno-suits with octopuslike robotic arms, while tucking several extremely simplified diagrams of a four-chambered heart and its surrounds into the blocky, pastel-hued cartoon illustrations. Viv's and Sanjay's faces are drawn with lighter and darker shades of brown. Sound messages are imparted, though they're a bit heavy-handed: The lion exhibits "kindness" by playing with lion cubs (and, to be sure, by not eating his rescuers); following an appended summary of heart facts, Ruths invites readers to create an "I am kind" badge and to also "make someone else's day a little better" by doing a kind act. (This review was updated for factual accuracy.) Mostly purpose driven but with enough light touches to maintain the flow. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)

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