The Stone Lion

Kelly L. Green is the Secretary of the Ontario Federation of Teaching
Parents, the past editor of CBRA’s Children’s Literature edition,
and the past president of the Toronto & District Parent Co-operative
Preschool Corporation.

Well-known illustrator Bill Slavin has joined fantasy and history with
his artistic talent in this story of a boy apprenticed to a silversmith
in a medieval cathedral town. The boy, lonely and fearing for his sick
grandmother at home, finds a friend in the stone lion on the top of the
cathedral’s bell tower. The lion, it seems, also knew the boy’s
grandmother in her youth, and when the boy brings them together again,
he frees them both from their respective temporal prisons.

Slavin’s muted, realistic illustrations depict majestic cathedrals,
medieval towns, thatched roofs, and rolling European agricultural
landscapes. This book is a wonderful addition to medieval literature for
children, which tends to concentrate heavily on castles and knights.
Highly recommended.