The forest creatures have gathered to choose a king. Kobe the tortoise thinks he’d be perfect for the job, but Dume – a lion with a fearsome roar – gets the majority vote. Dume proves a poor choice, using his power to demand special favours from his subjects. When hunters threaten the animals, clever Kobe takes advantage of the situation in this gentle fable to trick Dume into ruling with new-found wisdom.

Born and raised in Tanzania and now living in Edmonton, author Tololwa M. Mollel published his first book, The Orphan Boy, eight years ago. Since then he has released a book or so a year, many based on African fables. This latest is an original tale on the king of the animals theme, with a trickster tortoise character. Blessed with Mollel’s gift for humorous dialogue, Dume’s Roar is a lively story that adults and children will enjoy reading aloud together.

Working mostly in earth tones with pencil crayon, ink, and watercolour, American artist Kathy Blankley Roman nearly allows the book to become visually monotonous. (In contrast, her illustrations for Mollel’s 1993 book, The King and the Tortoise, portray its African village setting in vibrant, swirling patches of colour pastels.) She saves the situation by endowing each animal with amusing facial expressions. An illustration featuring the sybaritic lion being fanned by his weary subjects is a standout.

Though the overall package is attractive in a low-key way – from the cover design to the endpapers to the choice of paper stock – some small improvements would have made this book even better. A pronunciation guide would have been helpful to tell readers that Dume is pronounced Du-may. The artist’s media could have been noted on the copyright page, as is done in many picture books these days. All in all, this newest book featuring Mollel’s prodigious storytelling talent is not the strongest to date, but it nicely adds to his rapidly growing body of work.