The Lion King is my ultimate favorite story-book of all time. It has everything in it that I believe has
very high valued teachable moments among the pages. In the story, a young cub named Simba is
learning about life in the jungles of Africa and how being a lion really comes with a lot of
responsibility. It has been the perfect way to introduce how lions thrive and fight and live amongst
each other and amongst other vital animals here on Earth. Simba has a father named Mufasa who is
King of his pride and is teaching his cub son a lot of life lessons on how he can take over the jungle
once Mufasa has passed on and Simba becomes older. Which in a real scenario of lions this is very
similar to how they live life and contain prides. Unfortunately, the saddest part of the entire story is
when Scar, the uncle of Simba gets so jealous of his brother Mufasa's power that he takes power into
his own paws and sets Mufasa and Simba up for a tragedy. There was a stampede in the gorge that
hurt Mufasa badly and Scar convinces Simba to run away and to take all of the blame. Scar moves in
as the leader of the lionesses and Simba runs away to learn about life from a wart-hog and meerkats'
way of life and how they eat bugs and have no worries. A few years pass and Simba's childhood
friend Nala finds him in the jungle and convinces Simba to come back and fight Scar for his rightful
throne as King of the jungle. Simba reluctantly agrees and eventually fights Scar and banishes him
from the pride lands. Everything eventually goes back to normal and life as Mufasa began returns to
normal. This story has so many great narratives about trust, love, encouragement, and tenacity. This
story has a lot of lessons to be learned throughout the entirety of this book. It is an uplifting story
despite the everlasting effect of losing Mufasa will have however in the long run of explaining life
goes on and to never give up is vital in this story. It teaches that life always moves on and to not run
away from issues but to face them, have a good heart about it, and always strive for peace in the end.
This is one of my favorite books as well because lions are one of my favorite animals, including a
few other big cat groups. This story-book was also turned into a beautiful movie with wonderful
musical numbers in it. People have also made theatre versions and new versions of movies as well. I
think this is a great book that can teach a lot of different techniques about growing up and being part of
a group. There are a lot of animals you can center a lot of lesson plans around. There are also a lot of
fun characters to have your students choose from and act out a dramatic play. There are a lot of
different aspects to this book that can build social/emotional, cognitive, math and science ability,
language and literacy, and music that can adhere to a childs mind.
