Customer Reviews

The Lion's Paw

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4 star:		(1)
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Mrs. Nolan read The Lion's Paw to our 4th grade class at Brookshire Elementary in Winter Park, Florida in 1965. I never forgot how very much I loved the story and was inspired by Mrs. Nolan.
When I became a 4th grade teacher I very much wanted to share this story with my class. After several deadends, I was thrilled to discover our media specialist considered it her favorite childhood book, too, and had a copy in her personal collection! She kindly let me borrow it, even after I moved to a new school. Last year, my class presented me with a gift certificate which covered the cost of an original copy in very good condition. Once again, a brand new group of fourth graders is already completely captivated by Penny and Nick's plight....just two days into the new school year! Florida's geographical regions will come alive to them as we follow the storyline across the map. Besides utilizing math and science skills, I also integrate it into our character education program. The orphans and Ben demonstrate so many of the traits that we try to reinforce (or introduce!!) each and every day at our school. I am so pleased to be able to use this book to inspire a whole new group of young readers and budding writers. Thanks, Mrs. Nolan, and Robb White. I hope that Mr. White's family is pleased to see his work still have such an impact on yet another generation!

The Lion's Paw is the story of three kids Nick 9, Penny 13, brother and sister,who run away from the orphanage, and Ben 15, who owns the sloop on which they hide. Ben's uncle is about to sell the boat because Ben's father has been long missing in action and belived dead. Ben escapes with the orphans on the sloop and the adventure begins. As soon as the lines are cast off their lives and the sloop are under their own control. They blend their skills and strengths to overcome all sorts of new challenges and hardships to escape their persuers. The crew of the Lion's Paw learn to trust each other, work as a team, ignore pain, have fun and never give up! (A good plan for life!!) Each of the characters have qualities young people can admire. Nick the youngest takes the responsibility of steering the boat at night so the others can sleep and fights the alligator in spite of his fear. Penny carries the paint and rows the dinghy without complaint, because it must be done. Ben the oldest, knows about the boat and what they must do to eacape, he is wise, strong and caring beyond his years.

Personal: I too had The Lion's Paw read to my 5th grade class at South Grade at Lake Worth Fla. by Mrs. Mitchell. I messed about in boats had crushes on girls, searched for'Penny',and 37 years later I sailed out of Palm Beach inlet for the Bahamas with my wife, two young daughters and 'the book' aboard our sloop..well can you guess its name?
History: Robb White married Rodie at Thomasville Ga. and lived for a time on Dog cay? which later became? Marina cay and a book 'Our Virgin Island' and 'Two on the Island'. He seperated from Rodie and his son, moved to L.A. wrote for movies? andTV?
He died in '93. His son Robb lives on the famly estate in Thomasville, has developed several independent wood boat building methods and is a prolific writer for several wood boat magazines. The rights to the story rest with Robb's second wife Annie, which I guess published the book again in '83 but Ive never seen one. Movie? some talk, we who are passionate all these years have been seeing this in our minds all along.. can I be techinical advisor?

I was amazed to see so many reviews on this book! I also read this as a kid and never forgot the great story. I have looked for it off and on for years, especially so my young daughter could read it since she loves adventures. Now finally I found it here on Amazon.com! I remember how the brother and sister only got to read the orphanage sign backwards, "EGANAHPRO", because they never saw it from outside the fence... and their sailboat adventures looking for the Lion's Paw and their missing dad. I grew up in S Fla and remember looking for the shell on Sanibel Island. Can't wait to let my daughter read it. I should get a copy for her school's library! It is one of two books I realllly remembered as a kid. The other, "Rifles for Watie", a civil war classic about a boy who goes off to be a Union drummer boy, is also back out now, in paperback.

Mrs. Baldwin read us the book at Palmetto Elementary School in 1969. I spent the last chapter sitting outside because I checked out my own copy and read it before she was finished. No matter, the story still had a tremendous impact on me. It sounds like I unexpectedly ran into some classmates as I was looking for a book to read to my children! I am now living in WA state. The boat-based adventures never left me either, and I can't wait to pass on the tradition to my family.

When I was in 6th grade in St. Cloud, FL, my teacher read The Lion's Paw to us. It was always a favorite of mine. When I rediscovered it when teaching 4th grade, I added a geography twist to it for my students. Where did Penny, Nick, and Ben start? They loved tracing their route on the map. We made a quilt one year of their favorite parts of the story. I have been teaching for 20+ years and still read it to my students. Some years they beg me to read it a second time. The alligator hunt is so alive for them with his description of Nick's adventure. Tears at the end of the story from everyone. Happy tears or sad tears? A must read to find out.

The Lion's Paw was read, one chapter daily, to my fifth grade class in the 1960's. What a treasured memory! I, too, would like to know if Robb White is still living and writing. I've loaned this book to every child I know, but now will start giving them copies of their own. Thank you, Robb White, for a wonderful adventure!

I grew up on a boat and I was always looking for stories about other kids on boats. This was and is one of my all-time favorites. Nick and Penny are orphans and Nick is always running away. This time they run away together and wind up on a sloop called the Hardalee, owned by Ben's father, who is MIA in the Pacific during WWII. Ben's uncle is about to sell the Hardalee. Ben's not going to stand for that, and Penny and Nick get a lot farther away than they thought they would. Oh, and they're not orphans, by the way, they're eganaps. Because, you know, they weren't in an orphanage, they were in an eganahpro.

Great characters, you-are-there setting (Florida), a satisfying plot and an ending that will make you cheer. I have been hunting down used copies of this book all my life to give to the kids in my extended family. I'm chivvying my publisher to acquire the rights and bring it back into print. Possibly with an introduction by...yes, that would be me.

"What's the best historical fiction book you read when you were my age dad," our 9 year old asked me this morning while we were looking over an upcoming project guide for his 4th grade class. Instantly I told him 'The Lion's Paw' and we instantly went to Amazon to find it. Yea, we were two key strokes from the most amazing story of my childhood.

He didn't understand why my eyes misted up as I read the reviews and was instantly taken back to the story of three children overcoming incredible situations. He didn't understand why we vacation in and around the barrier islands of the Southwest Florida coast most summers. He didn't understand why his daddy has always loved sailing the coast of Florida under any weather condition. He didn't understand it today, but after reading the most amazing story of my childhood, he will. You will too.

The Lion's Paw was read to my fourth grade class at North mi Elementary School and I re-read it several times. What a great story! My parents took the family all over South Florida so I had the wonderful shock of finding that Sanibel Island, Lake Okechobee and the Calusahatchee River were REAL PLACES! I grew up in the Boy Scouts canoeing all these places and now have a kayak tour business in the Everglades and the Bahamas (ibistours.com). My Dad and I built a wooden, sailing, pram while I was in elementary school, and I had many great years of sailing and paddling it. I have spent a lifetime on the water and I am still drawn back to the magical scenes from the Lion's Paw. After my father died, I had a dream of walking the beach at Sanibal looking for the Lion's Paw that would bring him back. In all my years of walking beaches with my head down, I still have not found the elucive shell. Cannot think of a better book to encourage children to be couragous and self reliant. It would make a great movie.

I read this book when we were stationed at the naval air station at Jacksonville, Florida-which must be close to where the action started. All I had to do to see terrain and trees such as were experienced by the book's characters-was to just look out the window. I must have read this book at least half a dozen times before going on to junior high at Pensacola. Now, I am re-reading the books that shaped my early life and find this book just as well written as I remembered it.

I also loaned this book to a friend who had read it decades ago-he then loaned it to his wife. Even though she had never read it as a child she found it delightful reading.

It starts with two young orphans who want to escape from a drab orphanage. They hide on a sailboat operated by a slightly older boy, son of a WW-2 MIA who will not help them-until he learns that his uncle (and guardian) plans to sell off the boat-then they all run off together in the boat-sailing by night-hidden in coves by day. There are fantastic word pictures. How can someone describe the nitty gritty of hands used to row for hours with burst and bleeding blisters---and still make such distasteful realism seem like part of a wonderful adventure? And, when they have tried to sail through a storm to escape the claims of a bounty hunter-and hear "him" climb aboard and come down the stairs to the cabin where they wait in fear and with a wrench-ready to brain the scoundrel-only to realise that this is not the bounty hunter but..... Such is the skill of the writing that time in this moment seems to almost stand still