Hey kids, my cousin, Mr. Lion, is the hero in this story.  One day, he wanders into a library, where the head librarian, a Miss Merriweather,  is very fussy about the rules.  You know that kind of human librarian I mean:  The one that says, “Don’t talk out loud,  walk don’t run.”  Cats, as you know, like to break the rules.

But what a bad ass and cool kitty cat Mr. Lion is.  He takes charge.  He walks over to the human children’s  story corner and promptly plops down on the floor, taking a nap, before waking up to listen to the story.   The next day he arrives early and dusts the books, licks the envelopes, and allows small children to climb on his back, so they can reach the books on high shelves.  No one knows quite what to do with Mr. Lion,  because you see there were no rules against lions being in the library.

One day Miss Merriweather tries to reach a book from a very high shelf, and falls to the floor. “Go get help,” Mr. Lion, she crys out.  Off the lion runs (even though the rule said, “no running in the library.”)  He discovers a Mr. McBee, another human librarian, and roars his loudest roar…Rooooarrrrrrrrr, hoping the dumb human will understand that a librarian has crashed to the floor and broken her arm.   “You broke the rules,” said Mr. McBee,  and Mr. Lion hung his head head shame and left the library.  And then he disappeared.

The next day, Mr. Lion did not show up for Story Hour. He did not help the librarian reshelve the books.  Mr. Lion wasn’t in the library to help children reach for top shelves to get books. Had Mr. Lion gone back to the jungle to chase antelope?  Perhaps, Mr. Lion had fallen off a cliff into the oceian?  So finally, one day in the pouring rain, Mr. McBee searches  all over the city to find the lion and finally found him outside the library looking in the windows.  There’s a new library rule, said Mr. McBee.  “No roaring allowed unless there’s a good reason.”  Because sometimes there’s a good reason to break the rules…even in the library. So Mr. Lion puts one heavy foot after another and walks back into the library.