The Lion Inside

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Look at the facial expression of the animals in each illustration. Can you take photographs of yourself (or a friend) showing different facial expressions and use these as the starting point for your own illustrations?

Think of words / phrases to describe the mouse, the lion and the settings in this story. Look through the text to find words and phrases that the author uses.

Rachel Bright Press Reviews

In the ‘tinyful house, lived the littlest, quietest, meekest brown mouse’. Can you think of other superlatives and use them in your own sentences?

Her written work includes children’s stories and poems, clever advertising copy and lots of other stuff besides. Her illustrative work is a smorgasboard of giant, hand-printed poems, mind-bogglingly detailed gouache illustrations and a cacophony of quirky prints and etchings. The mouse wants to be able to roar like a lion. Make a list of words that describe the sounds that different animals make. Play the Sneaky Mouse Game- the lion sleeps and the mouse tries to sneak up to them and tap their nose or put their nose on the lions nose without waking the lion. If the lion hears the mouse, they have to wake up and run way because Lion is scared of mice. So mouse has to catch the lion and cuddle them or say something nice so that the Lion knows not to be scared. Create your own illustrations of a lion and a mouse. Use our lion photos (see below) for inspiration.

The mouse overcomes his fears and goes to the lion for help. Can you think of a time when you have overcome your fears? How did you feel? What was the outcome? What advice would you give to others? She once won a week-long date in Tahiti, with ‘Man of the Millenium’ featured in Marie Claire magazine (and then spent a long time living it down). She runs a really long way every day and has done loads of ultra-marathons all over the world, the most recent of which include the Atlantic Coast Challenge (3 marathons in 3 days) and the Midnight Sun marathon in the Arctic Circle. Her work aims to capture a free way of thinking - one which makes you feel anything is possible, a feeling all too easily lost with the end of childhood. When we’re all grown-up, sometimes we just need a little nudge to remember it’s been there all along. The story tells us that ‘we all have a mouse AND a lion inside’. Can you think of any stories that have a moral? What do they try to teach us?