The Good Lion

This is adapted from an account that Beryl Markham wrote in her memoir, West with the Night. Which I have read, but I only vaguely remember this incident now. When she was a child, she visited a neighboring farm with her father. Walked off into the bush to look for something- just exploring as a kid. Nobody thought much of it. But the neighbor had a tame lion that roamed at will, and it stalked her. One of the neighbor’s workers saw it following her and rushed up with some other hands, just in time to startle the lion off- it had pounced, pinned her down and bitten her leg. Nobody did anything to the lion in the moment (they would have beaten it but it fled), but when later it started killing livestock, it was shut up in a cage. And stayed there until it died, many years later. The author though, harbored no ill feeling towards the lion, she said it was only doing what instinct drove it to. I really don’t understand the title of this book, though- and it’s shelved among juvenile non-fiction! I think a lot of kids would find this story disturbing or downright frightening. And personally, I didn’t care for the illustrations at all. Not recommended, sorry.

Borrowed from the public library.