And while I do realise that this book was originally written in the 1950s, it does not really change my reaction to how the lion is being housed and kept all that much (especially considering that I actually had a very much similar reaction as a small child, in the late 1960s and early 1970s). So yes, upon now rereading after more than four decades (and this time, in English), The Happy Lion is definitely a picture book that has for my personal tastes quite massively lost much of its potential charm (the solitary lion in a smallish zoo enclosure is really so completely not what I would consider a contented and in any way satisfied and naturally kept lion to be that I can only now rate The Happy Lion with two stars at best, the brilliance of Roger Duvoisin's illustrations and even the often inherent sweetness and gentle humour of Louise Fatio's narrative notwithstanding). But honestly, author Louise Fatio’s entire textual premise regarding The Happy Lion (or Der glückliche Löwe, as it is called in German) has always managed to rather feel at best a bit unnatural and at worst quite troubling, both now and also when I had Der glückliche Löwe repeatedly read to me in 19, when I was three and four years of age (that the lion resides in a zoo, and is all by himself in his rather sparse enclosure, is completely solitary, and that he, that the lion is also seemingly more happy with this kind of an existence than on the plains of Africa, which are actually presented by the author, are depicted by Louise Fatio in The Happy Lion as somehow and strangely being toon hot, too dangerous and perhaps thus even unsuitable for lions).Īnd well, although I still very much enjoyed the general plotline and the antics of the lion on his romp through the picturesque and nameless French town when my grandmother read the German version, when she read Der glückliche Löwe to three and four year old me, she certainly could not (or perhaps would not) answer my questions as to why a lion residing in a zoo all by himself was supposedly content and happy (and seemingly more contented, more fulfilled than if he lived in wild freedom in Africa).

So yes and indeed, I certainly have always adored Roger Duvoisin's expressive illustrations for the 1954 picture book The Happy Lion (especially their muted, yet nevertheless glowing colour schemes, and a lion with such sweet, pensive facial features).

The Happy Lion by Louise Fatio