Cover Image: Call Me Lion

Call Me Lion

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Member Reviews

This is a children’s book. This book is so heartwarming. This is so insightful into something that I had no knowledge of.

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I loved 'Call Me Lion'. Such a sweet, uplifting story of friendship, understanding, and personal bravery, with a fabulous cast of characters. A perfect summer read with real heart.

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I have just finished reading this delightfully touching children’s book. The story of Leo and his struggles with SM (Selective Mutism) were fascinating and informative, as well as touching. The main characters Leo and Richa are brought to life realistically and with real depth. These children both face adversity and struggles with school and yet find a way to connect and support each other - such a strong friendship bond.
As a newly retired teacher I feel strongly that this book is not only an interesting read, but could also help both children and teachers understand more about what SM is like from the inside (a quite unique perspective), as well as the value and strength of ‘real friendship’. I may also have shed a couple of emotional tears as the ending neared!
Camilla Chester is an excellent children’s author and I will be recommending this book along with her three previous novels.

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A gorgeous tale of friendship, bursting with empathy. Sensitively written and emotionally evocative, it's a beautiful read that will open up hearts and minds.

That stunning cover is just perfect too.

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Though it is a shorter book, there is still an emotional punch packed into the story of Lion and Richa. Making no small secret of Lion’s selective mutism, I truly got a glimpse into what he was feeling, his barriers and challenges but also that he is just a normal boy dreaming big dreams! He just can’t share them with the wider world.

There are aspects to bullying in this, as Leo (Lion) is unable to defend himself, share his talents or words in the same way. Kids can be cruel and he currently has no friends who understand or care.

Richa has just moved next door and she is bold, determined and confident. Their summer holidays begin together with a shared love of trampolining, Patch the dog and Dance camp. Leo finally feels a budding friendship but cannot express this properly, so he writes a letter! Richa, however, has a secret of her own.

Richa proves herself to be a brilliant friend by standing by Leo when other offers were shown to her. She could see the cruelty being directed towards Leo and stood up with him against it. Wanting to protect their friendship, they both take risks, share secrets and find ways to overcome their own challenges.

Their friendship is just the most joyous thing, even though they each bring a barrier to it. They are there to support, encourage and share experiences together.

This would be a superb class read, and it offers so much scope for conversations about differences, challenges and friendship!

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I know I’ve said before how heavily I am influenced in choosing titles to read by looking at their cover art. Here, although I loved the picture you see above, I misjudged the story terribly and almost missed out, which would have been a terrible shame. It’s not that I didn’t find the image appealing – it’s gorgeous – but from that I was expecting this to be one those fluffy, saccharine reads that I really dislike and scrolled past it several times on Net Galley as a result.

It was while having my usual evening Twitter fix a couple of days ago that my attention was really drawn to this book, this time in the form of a tweet pronouncing it to be an ‘astounding story of Leo, a selective mute, who dreams of performing in the West End’ accompanied by an image of a short blurb from The Bookseller. Now intrigued, I immediately returned to Net Galley to read in full the description and swiftly downloaded the book to my Kindle. Bumping it to the top of my TBR pile, I picked it up once I had finished what I was reading and was soon swept away by its loveliness and its originality.

When we are first introduced to Leo, he is bouncing up and down on his trampoline in the summer sun, like so many children do. Unlike many children though, Leo is bouncing because he has nothing else to do with his time as he has no friends with whom to play. The peace of this solitary activity is broken when he is suddenly greeted by a girl in the next door garden who has just moved in with her family, and whose trampoline has coincidentally been placed alongside his on the other side of the fence.

The little girl introduces herself as Richa and while Leo feels compelled to run away and hide, he manages his anxiety well enough to continue with his trampolining. After a very one-sided conversation, Richa realises that Leo is not contributing to the dialogue but, undeterred, carries on talking and with her mother’s blessing eventually makes her way around to play. Here, she meets Leo’s older brother and sister who explain that Leo does not talk – something that doesn’t appear to bother Richa in the slightest – and Leo starts to hope that they will be able to be friends.

Hoping to explain his selective mutism to her, Leo writes Richa a letter in which he explains how it affects him and when Richa not only starts at his dance class but sticks up for him against some of the other children when they are unkind to him, his hopes are raised further that he will return to school in September with a friend at last. But Leo is not the only one in need of a friend, and when Richa confides her biggest secret to him he discovers that she too is in desperate need of support. With Leo looking unlikely to feel confident enough to take part in the end of summer dance school show, can Richa help him to take to the stage, and can Leo find a way to help Richa out too?

When I was a child, inclusion didn’t exist – certainly not in the way that it does now. Although I very briefly went to school with a boy who was hearing impaired, he very quickly got moved to a school for the deaf and I had no real idea that people could be different in any way until I was well into my teens. While I have taught children who have been painfully shy and who have very rarely felt confident enough to speak aloud in class, but have been able to talk with their friends, or to myself if they have felt comfortable enough, I have never taught a child with selective mutism. With the story told through Leo’s first person narrative, it is soon clear that it is not that he won’t talk outside the safe environment of home, it is that he can’t – an important difference. It is all too easy for those of us who do not share an individual’s difference to make assumptions about what they need or what they should do, and here is clear guidance to readers on how best to accommodate the needs of people with selective mutism to allow them to be included in the day-to-day activities that the rest of us take for granted.

Both Leo and Richa are delightful characters. Big-hearted, intelligent and blessed with a huge empathy for other people, they soon form the sort of friendship that lasts a lifetime and I adored their story. Perfect for Year 4 upwards, this is a delightful story that should be in every school and one that I am so glad that I did not miss out on, as I so easily could have. Publishing 16th June, the most enormous of thanks go to publisher Firefly Press and to Net Galley for my advance read. Definitely one to pre-order.

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What a beautiful book about friendship and overcoming your fears and loneliness. I absolutely loved this and just know that I'll be thinking about the main characters, Leo and Richa for a long time to come.

Leo, who is affectionately known as Lion due to his hair and love of dancing and wanting to perform in the Lion King stage play is a child who has Selective Mutism, and struggles to talk except for quietly and only in the company of family at his safe place, at home. He's an instantly likeable character who I was rooting for from the start.

Who couldn't use a Richa in their lives? She's such a wonderful character with a vibrant personality, which compliments Leo's character so well.

I found myself moved to tears by their struggles at times. This is a sensitive handling of Selective Mutism, and I found myself learning more about the condition through Leo's character and relationships with family and other children throughout the story. What a heart-warming read, and one I'd certainly recommend to others.

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This is a beautiful book about the struggles, and loneliness, of being different. Leo, known affectionately as Lion by his family, suffers from Selective Mutism. Although he can talk to his closest family, in the safety of his own home, he finds that he simply cannot get any words out when he is around anyone else, no matter how much he wants to. When a new neighbour arrives, in the form of the wonderfully energetic Richa, a heart-warming relationship develops between them and Leo suddenly finds that he has his first ever true friend. A superb story and a wonderful insight into the turbulent existence of children who suffer from Selective Mutism.

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I absolutely adored Call Me Lion. A gorgeous book full of love and empathy and understanding.
I learned a lot from its representation of selective mutism, and other difficulties people experience and I'm sure it'll really help some children.

It's also a beautiful story, and at times quite an emotional one too. Leo and Richa are wonderful and I really liked the supporting cast, especially Leo's supportive, protective, bickering siblings Ryan and Brianne.

There's another element of representation that I was thrilled to see, and that was a boy dancing, being good at dancing, loving dancing, coming alive through dancing. As a man who loves to waltz, salsa and tango, let's keep normalising this please!

This is such a sensory book too! It came alive with sounds and smells, from Ryan's overpowering spray to the smell of sun cream, from the jangling of bracelets to the pumping disco beat. And the feel of a sweltering heatwave was palpable throughout!

With Call Me Lion, Camilla Chester has produced a powerful hit of a book with a beautiful tale.

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A delightful, inclusive, thoroughly absorbing story with a message that is far, far greater than its target age group. A must-read for all, that I am sure will please readers and listeners of all ages. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

When Leo, Lion to his family because of his bountiful orange hair, his life without friends, changes forever.
Having SM, Selective Mutism, Leo plays alone. He desperately wants a friend. But he has no friends bar his dog, Patch. After all, as one of his classmates said, 'you can't be friends with someone who can't talk — fact.'

What people don't see, don't know or understand, is that his SM is not something he can control. It controls him, at least with people that he doesn't know well and trust, like his family. Leo has a gift, a talent for dancing, and he practices every day in summer on his trampoline, and in the holidays at a dance club. He is a boy on a mission to one day dance in The Lion King theatre show.

When a new family moves in next door, their daughter, Richa, bounces quite literally on her own trampoline into his life. Brash, bold and talkative enough for them both, she seems everything Leo isn't. And yet she is also everything he hopes for — a possible friend. At least until she realises he can't talk and that the girls at school are more fun and abandons him. But him not being able to respond doesn't put her off, and together they begin a journey borne out of a common passion for dance that culminates in a local dance competition.

I really can not praise this story enough. Written in Leo's own voice, and spread over a few weeks of school holidays and during a heatwave. It follows Leo and Richa, their families and schoolmates as they deal with life, friendships, ignorance, prejudices and most of all, the very real challenges that their own unique situations pose.
A plot twist partway through the story left me stunned, and completely in awe of the writer's skill. As I mentioned at the beginning, this book is far, far greater than it might appear at face value, and we thoroughly enjoyed it, had tears in our eyes, and would wholeheartedly recommend it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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Like many his age, Leo dreams of performing in The Lion King on the West End, but unlike many…Leo has selective mutism. He loves to dance, but performing in front of anyone who he won’t talk to, that’s not happening. However, Richa moves in next door and she shakes up Leo’s world. She’s chatty and everything that he needs in a friend right now. Can Leo and Richa weather the storms of friendship together? Or will his selective mutism cause an unsolvable rift between the pair?

Call Me Lion is a heart-wrenching tale of found friendship dealing with the sensitive issue of selective mutism. It’s not that Leo won’t talk, it’s that he can’t – the anxiety builds up and makes it extremely difficult for him to do so. The author handles such an issue so delicately, explaining the ins and outs in ways that children will grasp and most children can deal with such issues in incredible empathetic ways – I imagine this will be the case here. It’s so important to have stories that deal with real world issues and the diverse range of people (including conditions such as selective mutism) and I am so grateful that more and more children will get to read books that show themselves.

Leo and Richa’s friendship is central to the story. Richa is a fantastic character, extremely chatty, but instantly likeable and I enjoyed how the author navigated Richa finding out about Leo’s selective mutism. She felt very real and the way that she dealt with Leo and their friendship feels exactly how I might see children behave at school. Her fierce protection of him is wonderful to witness. Additionally, Richa’s secret (I won’t spoil it) is very real for many children and there was no judgement from Leo. The last line in the story between the pair really tugged at my heart – there were tears!

Finding your family is never easy, especially not when you have selective mutism, but Call Me Lion shows that good friends will never judge. 5 out of 5 stars.

Thank you to Firefly Press and NetGalley for the e-book review copy.

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I got this book for free via NetGalley as an ARC and if you have read any of my other recent reviews, you'll already know that every book starts off with the full five stars and I'm always hopeful that they are still stuck firmly in place by the time I close the back cover.

The cover is simple but effective which is a great relief considering how busy some other covers are!

Let's get reading.

Oooh! From the first paragraph it seems like this is gonna be written in first person instead of the usual third which will hopefully make the book more interesting, but hopefully not confusing!

Wowsers! I'm up to chapter 3 already and haven't stopped reading yet, let alone found anything to complain about lol

Reading Leo's letter in chapter 4, I can already tell that this book is gonna have me in tears at least once before the end!

So far this book has been a must-read for everyone, adults and children alike.

Oh dear... the first star is teeter-tottering at page 39 for copyright reasons - I'm seriously hoping that the author has prior written permission to use the song by a group that already exists, otherwise she and the publisher could get into serious legal hot water.

The author has used the American spelling of aeroplane too but I'm guessing that's because 8-12 year olds might struggle with the spelling/pronounciation with the British spelling.

Now theatre shows are being included as well as the well-known online video platform, so that first star is unfortunately coming off at page 41 - if it wasn't for that though, it'd still very much be a 5 star book.

Wowsers! WTG Richa at the end of chapter 7... I want a friend like her too!

Just about to start chapter 11 and I honestly don't know where the last 3 chapters have gone to. Gonna read one more chapter then go and grab some lunch I reckon. This is a totally incredible book!

OMGosh! That's a huge secret for Richa to have held, but I'm relieved that she's opened up to Leo about it. I don't wanna stop reading yet, but my belly is rumbling, so I don't have a choice lol

It's page 145 and I'm in tears... just like I predicted at the start of this review. Positive, relieved tears thankfully and wih another 10-ish pages to read, I'm predicting that there will be more to come too.

I'd just finished sobbing my heart out but the tears have reappeared with the last sentence of the entire book.

This is a definite must-read for everyone... just make sure you've got the tissues at the ready for the last few pages!

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