Review Detail

“Flora’s Wish” by Fiona Halliday tells the story of a field mouse named Flora and her friend, a lion. The beauty of their friendship is that Flora feels content being best friends with a lion, despite the fact that it is not really a lion at all. Rather, it is a dandelion, though she finds herself taking courageous, adventurous steps to be with her friend.

When the seasons begin to change and the whiskers on “lion” turn from yellow to silver and then are one day totally gone, Flora has to learn to cope with these changes and find ways to survive despite them.

The illustrations depict a friendly, though lonely mouse who feels love, friendship, kindness, as well as loss, grief, and tumult when life doesn’t go as she hoped it would. Yet, through it all, she learns the power of finding her own strength and reveling in the beauty of the world, however it might be at any given moment.