Leapin’ Leopards
Summary
Leapin’ Leopards is the first book in Bill Myer’s exciting, animal-packed adventure series, The Magnificent Mulligans. The Mulligans, a large family in charge of the 1350-acre Mulligan Wild Animal Park have their hands full with the birth of a baby giraffe, middle school fashion drama, and an escaped leopard name Freda. All these adventures lovingly transcribed to the reader by the wry-humored family chimpanzee, Winona.
Assessment
Leapin’ Leopards is a delightful initiation into the Magnificent Mulligans series. The book wastes no time bringing the reader into the Mulligan world and family with all its wonderful craziness. Taking place across three different plots, the book weaves itself around two core messages: forgiveness — including how forgiving others is just as important to us as it is to the person we are forgiving — and kindness to people and creatures weaker than ourselves.
The book has just the right amount of grounded and whimsical to get these two messages across without weighing down the reader or coming across as preachy. If, however, the reader — or a parent or teacher — want to dig deeper into the message, there is a short summary and series of questions in the back of the book to expand on each chapter.
Overall, the book is exceptionally well-written. The writing style is hilarious and wry without being sarcastic or cruel. Definitely the kind of humor and comedic timing that the younger generations — and those that have spent a lot of time on the internet — would find appealing. There is also the right amount of description to help the reader form a picture in their head without waxing on poetic for pages and pages (which, as a middle-grade novel, is definitely something that should be avoided).
Light-o-Meter
Writing Style: 7 out of 7 Little Lights
Plot: 5 out of 7 Little Lights
Worldbuilding: 5 out of 7 Little Lights
Characters: 6 out of 7 Little Lights
Theological Message: 7 out of 7 Little Lights
Overall: 6 out of 7 Little Lights
Talk
I am fully grown, bill-paying adult and I absolutely love this book with all its adventures, mishaps, and wry humor. There was comedy, there was drama, there was a leopard scaring an aging Hollywood actor in some kind of unflattering bathing suit out of his hot tub and onto a hotel balcony for all the world to see. I suppose that last one fits better into a “trauma” category for all the characters involved, but it was very comedic for the reader.
I have two favorite parts of the Magnificent Mulligans series as a whole and they are: 1. the wry humor and 2. how effortlessly it teaches important lessons without at all seeming contrived or preachy. Each book has 2-3 plots running parallel all teaching roughly the same lesson in different contexts, both the high-flying adventure and the more mundane and relatable problems at school. At no point do the books make the reader feel as though the point of the story is just to be a plate that conveys the larger message. The books are fun and delightful even if you ignore the lesson entirely!
One thing that impressed me about Leapin’ Leopards was how quickly it bounded into the slightly-more-graphic-but-in-a-biology-class-kind-of-way descriptions of some of the animal drama/trauma. Definitely nothing that I think very sensitive readers need to be careful of (the most graphic thing is a giraffe giving birth), but definitely something that the super squeamish may need to be aware of. In that, however, I think very highly of this book (and series) for any kid that is interested in becoming a veterinarian or working with wildlife when they grow up. It has just the right amount of reality in it to ease them into the wonderful, the gross, and the tragic of being a steward of animals.
Wrap-up
Leapin’ Leopards is a fantastic first novel in the Magnificent Mulligans series. With a solid, Scripturally based message as its foundation, Leapin’ Leopards tells an action-packed story filled with animals of all kinds as the Mulligan family navigate school, relational, and leopard-based adventures, learning forgiveness and kindness in the midst of it all.
Where to Enjoy
Amazon: Leapin’ Leopards (Magnificent Mulligans): 9781646071111: Myers, Bill: Books
Barnes & Noble: Leapin' Leopards by Bill Myers, Paperback
Christianbook.com: Leapin' Leopards: Bill Myers: 9781646071111
Tyndale Publishing: Tyndale | Leapin’ Leopards
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