An African jungle lion decides one day that he isn't going to run from the rifle-carrying hunters who are chasing him and his friends. He tries to make nice with one of them, but when the hunter tries to shoot him, the lion eats the hunter and takes his rifle. Eventually he learns how to pull the trigger with his tail and becomes an expert marksman, attracting the attention of a circus owner who names the lion Lafcadio and brings him to America. Lafcadio becomes rich and famous showing off his skills in front of circus crowds, but when he returns to the jungle years later he questions his place in the world.Shel Silverstein narrates Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back as "Uncle Shelby," a self-described "very handsome and very intelligent and very kind" man who helps Lafcadio when he arrives in America. The author fills his story with whimsical conceits, such as a suit made of marshmallows and a lion who can sign six autographs at once using his tail, teeth, and four paws, but Lafcadio and his lion friends do eat the hunters who want to shoot them, and those hunters do shoot and kill the lions who don't run away fast enough. Silverstein's book also ends on a down note, with Lafcadio facing an identity crisis—"And he didn't really know where he was going, but he did know he was going somewhere, because you really have to go somewhere, don't you?"—that will likely ring true with tween readers who feel stuck at the border between childhood and adolescence.
Older tweens may also be interested in reading Brian K. Vaughan's graphic novel Pride of Baghdad (2006), illustrated by Niko Henrichon.
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