“One morning, a week or so later, Bertie was woken by a chorus of urgent neighing. He jumped out of his bed and ran to the window. A herd of zebras was scattering away from the waterhole, chased by a couple of hyenas. Then he saw more hyenas, three of them, standing stock still, noses pointing, eyes fixed on the waterhole. It was only now that Bertie saw the lion cub.”
When I saw this book, I was not very excited about it – it just didn’t sound as exciting as say Kensuke’s Kingdom or An Eagle in the Snow. But, I read it because it was by Michael Morpurgo, and I wanted a small book for a camping trip. I was astonished at how good it was! Though it was not Morpurgo’s best book, it was really good!
I have found that Michael Morpurgo seems to like a certain way to introduce a story. He likes to tell a minor story with minor characters, who tell the main and more important story. The minor storytellers are usually in the main story itself. In this case, the minor story is that a boarding school boy runs away and gets picked up by a kind lady. It turns out that the lady's late husband was at the same boarding school as the runaway, and so she understands why the runaway ran away. She takes the boy to her house for tea and tells him the story about the lion on the hill by the house (the main plot).
The story the friendly lady tells is about a boy named Bertie, who lived in Africa. Bertie lived a hundred miles away from any city or town. Because of the wild animals, Bertie’s father built him a compound to keep lions and other ferocious beasts away from his son and wife. Bertie had no friends, not even a pet, so he was lonely. One day he saw a lioness with her cub by the watering hole just outside the compound. The cub was white as snow—a very rare coloration for lions. A few days later Bertie’s father came in from herding the family’s cattle. He told his family that he just shot a lioness who was preying on his cattle. The lioness had a white cub. Bertie felt bad for the abandoned white cub, and so when he saw the cub out at the watering hole being attacked by hyenas, Bertie ran out of the compound for the first time in his life to save the cub.
Bertie and the cub became best friends, and when Bertie was sent to boarding school in England the cub was sent to a circus. Bertie hated it, both the boarding school and leaving his pet/best friend. While Bertie was in boarding school he met a girl who lived a very similar early life. She had been very sheltered and lonely. She and Bertie fell in love, and by the time WWI broke out they were married. Bertie enlisted and went to war in France. He was injured, and when his wife found out, she became a nurse so she might find him. At long last they found each other and went looking for Bertie’s lion who became part of a French circus.
Butterfly Lion is an absolutely charming book, and I really enjoyed the twist at the end. I love Michael Morpurgo so much. He keeps me interested, and I hope to read all of his diverse collection of stories.