"Never look a lion in the eye,” a mother

tells her fearless girl. After a field trip to the

Gir Forest, the girl learns all about the rare

Asiatic lions of India, and from that day on

she dreams of taking care of them when she

grows up. But not everyone thinks a girl has

a right to such a dream, and so she stifles

what she wishes for most—but a roar grows

inside her. The girl grows up to become a

forester at the very place she first fell in love

with the lions. It is a dangerous job. Not only

is she the first woman to hold such a job,

roaming and roaring about on a motorbike

in the forest at night, she is good at it—

saving injured lionesses, trapped leopards,

abandoned cubs—inspiring more gutsy

women to join the ranks of the Lion Queens.

The day the girl comes face to face with a

lion, she looks him in the eye. And then she

roars back.

This empowering and poetic picture book

is inspired by the story of a real-life Lion

Queen, Rasila Vadher, The First Woman Guardian of the Last Asiatic Lions

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