Red Light, Green Lion

PreS-Gr 2-Depicting a lion leaning on an umbrella at a spotlight, the front cover of this book grabs readers' attention immediately. Who is this lion, and what is he up to? The author plays with the pull of the page turn by hyphenating the word lion in the text ("Red light, green li-on," "Red light, green li-ghtning"). To find out what the word is, readers must turn the page. The text is playful, but the illustrations lack any hints as to what word might be highlighted next, which is a bit frustrating. The story is about taking things as they come, even when they are surprising, and trusting that things will turn out well in the end. The message is lost, though, in all the zaniness. Unexpected, somewhat nonsensical words and sentences do make this a silly read-aloud that will tickle the younger set. Nevertheless, the idea of hyphenating a word is interesting, but breaking a word with an eye to the word's meaning might be more effective (care, careful, careless, etc.) and help support reading skills.