The original is in English but I note that most reviews are of the French translation. Mine is of the German translation.
Great illustrations, quite a broad vocabulary (no "cat sat on the mat" baby talk), grammar is straightforward.
Good fun book for any child learning German. ( )

At first I had mixed feelings about this book, but after reading it a second time I understood the deeper meaning behind this story. One part of this book that I really enjoyed is that it is set in France. I have not read many other books that have France as the setting. The author used some French words such as "bonjour" and "au revoir" which I thought made this book unique. I also really liked the illustrations in this book. The illustrator switched back and forth between colored pages and black and white pages. I thought this was a very interesting contrast and it helped keep my attention. At first I thought this story was slow and anticlimactic. However upon further thought, this story has a much deeper meaning than it appears to have. The main character in this story is a Lion that is taken from his home and put into a zoo that is much different from is home. The lion is happy, and views himself as a gentle and well liked animal. When he is at the zoo people are very kind to him, making him think it will be the same when he happens to leave the zoo one day. Immediately the people are scared and alarmed, thinking that the lion will be dangerous. The lion has no idea why they are scared, and does not understand why the people are acting this way towards him. He is not aware of the "stereotypes" that are placed on lions. This sends the message of how powerful human judgements can be on how someone behaves. ( )

What a simple harmless lion story. I really liked that while every adult completely misunderstood the situation, Francois, the child knew just what to do and didn't overreact at all. How delightful! ( )

"Bonjour! Happy Lion!" My four-year-old son and I love to say this to each other. This is a classic French story book and such a fun one! I think it's just as much fun for me to read as it is for my my son to listen. It does have that 50ish-early 60's sort of feel to it because of the illustrations, but it's still timeless. ( )

This is a very cute book about a lion's lifestyle within a zoo. I would read it to my classroom before a fieldtirp to the zoo, so that we could relate the book to the student's visit. ( )