As 2026 started to unravel, a new jaw-dropping children’s spectacle proudly roared onto the Adam Theater. “Library Lion,” directed by Ran Bechor, has ended its run and solidified itself as a truly meaningful show in an era of otherwise thoughtless entertainment. As a musical adaptation of the award-winning book by Michelle Knudsen with the same title, the audience was transported into this wonder-filled library, and, behind the children’s amusement, a clear message was portrayed. Through creative blocking, farcical acting, pseudo-melodramatic musical accompaniment and an impressively-built full-functioning lion puppet, “Library Lion” has taught its young audience the importance of empathy when faced with rigid rules while propagating literacy amongst children. 

All was typical and routine, unforgivably followed when Kevin and Michelle, two children tasked by their teacher to read a fable, entered the library. Mister McBee, the librarian on duty,  restricts them and imparts upon them the three rules they had to follow: no shouting, no eating and drinking and no running. As Michelle proceeds to break all three of the rules and has her behavior thoroughly corrected by McBee, Miss Merryweather, the head librarian, teaches the children about the wonders of silence. She explains that if they follow all the rules, the silence would allow the library to become a place where freedom can exist to its fullest, where imagination knows no bounds. 

Convinced, all agreed to follow the rules and went to tend to their particular goals. As they all left the stage, three actors wearing beige costumes entered and waved to the audience. They quickly made their exit just to immediately return as the puppeteers of a cute, large and blinking lion who promptly scared Mister McBee. To his unfortunate fate, Miss Merryweather instructed McBee simply to “let him be”; he wasn’t breaking any rules, after all. The lion, an avid enjoyer of storytime, returned the next day only to find that he had arrived too early. The head librarian asked whether he could help her with her duties, and licking the envelopes for overdue library notices seemed to be a perfect job for our kind animal. At her command, the lion stuck out his tongue — a truly impressive feat for a puppet like him — and the audience descended into laughter at the well-intended yet poorly executed tongue-out maneuver. When Miss Merryweather teaches him how to lick, the puppet shakes its tongue and body, completing its task while making all audience members, children and adults alike, descend into true, deep and exhilarating laughter. A cute and smiling lion, politely and enthusiastically shaking his body and stretched-out tongue, was too endearing a sight. 

A few scenes later, the head librarian stretched too far while getting a book and drastically fell onto the ground — a scene that was carefully acted out in a manner that no actor was hurt, no child got scared and the climaxing tension was nonetheless felt. In an attempt to get McBee to come and help her, the friendly lion started to roar. However, having broken the “no shouting” rule, McBee kicked the lion out of the library. Once he saw Merryweather fallen with a broken arm, the librarian understood what had happened and rushed out in search of the wronged feline. In a musical aside, McBee confessed that the stark difference between the two of them had made him afraid, and this fearfulness led him to misjudgment. In an effort to explain his reasoning, McBee sings, “He was furry and tall. He didn’t speak our language … or any language at all.” He found the lion and explained that there’s a new rule in place: no roaring, unless it's for a good reason, such as to help a friend who’s hurt. Now able to return, the lion went back to the library and, faced with this jolly surprise, Merryweather ran to hug him, breaking the library’s third rule. Thus, the play concludes as great a fable as the ones Kevin and Michelle had sought to read. Its moral was simple yet deep, a principle that, as succinct as it is, goes largely misunderstood: “Sometimes there’s a good reason to break the rules.”

The director, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, explained that his motivation for this play was his grandmother’s stories. One key story was of a boy who entered the synagogue but couldn’t read or write, and therefore couldn’t read the prayers. Instead, he played his trumpet, which got him quickly kicked out by members of the congregation. Once the rabbi had learned of their behavior, he shamed the congregation and said that the boy’s trumpet, although different from their typical rituals, had been opening the gates of Heaven for them. Bechor said that, as important as this story was, he had always been disappointed not to know what happened to the boy after he was driven off the temple. The wonder of this play, however, was that the character who was different and subsequently pushed out of their space gets to come back. In this story, the characters who were quick to misjudge those who were different learned to be better. In his talk-back, the director claimed that this story teaches to have empathy towards people who may be different from you and to understand that rules shouldn’t be blindly followed, as there often are good reasons to break them, e.g., to help your friend who’s hurt or to open the gates of heaven. 

“Library Lion” was thus the perfect children’s show. It had a good moral about empathy towards others, such as those who don’t look like you or speak your language, and how rules aren’t as black-and-white as they seem — a moral that adult audience members felt to be important in our polarized and often cruel modernity. The show encouraged literacy, the dramatic format being especially fitting for this purpose, as it may encourage good-reading habits for those who are still too young to be able to partake in them, enriching their worldview and guiding them into a future where literacy is thought of as fun. Sometimes, it's precisely within places where all can fully experience freedom that one may have a good reason to break the rules. Sometimes, we must understand that we may not promptly judge all of those who are different from us, and if the rules themselves are forcing this misjudgment, then there may be a good reason for breaking the rules. 

What's more, and perhaps most pivotally for the parents of this short-attention-span generation, the children genuinely had a blast while watching the show. The puppet was magnificent, though one child admitted to having been initially scared of it. The initial introduction of the puppeteers, however, aided the children who were more afraid than marveled to understand that the lion was not real, and therefore they were able to tame their fears. As an uncle of six, I hadn’t believed I could find a show fitting for modern children like my nephews. I couldn’t imagine a show that was enough of a spectacle to harness their focus, but that was nonetheless educational and principled. After having watched “Library Lion,” I have nothing but utter trust in the Adam Theater and Ran Bechor, and I will surely and excitedly bring the young ones to whatever they might do next.