PENGUIN READERS
Teachers notes EASYSTART
The Leopard and the Lighthouse
Anne Collins
Summary
The story takes place in East Africa, on an island called
Sindi. There is a small village and a lighthouse on the
island. One day a leopard swims from the mainland to the
island. The leopard is very hungry and he is looking for
food. When he gets out of the sea he walks to the village.
The people are shopping in the marketplace and they see
the leopard. The children cry and the men of the village
throw stones at the leopard. The leopard runs away from
the people and the people follow him. The leopard is very
tired and so he runs into the old lighthouse.
After three days and nights the leopard is still in the
lighthouse. The people want to catch the leopard, but they
dont know how to do it. The Head Man of Sindi has an
idea. He has a beautiful daughter called Tanza and the
Head Man says, The man who kills the leopard can marry
my daughter.
Many men are in love with Tanza and some of them try
to kill the leopard, but they are not successful. In the end,
a kind young man called Saied shoots the leopard with a
special dart. The leopard isnt dead, he is only sleeping.
Saied takes the leopard to an animal park in Nairobi and
sets him free.
Five years later, Saied and Tanza are married and they
have three children. They go to Nairobi to visit the animal
park. The children see the leopard and Saied tells them the
story of how he caught the leopard in the lighthouse.
Background and themes
Leopards: The leopard is the smallest of the four big cats.
There are more leopards than there are tigers, lions or
jaguars. The leopard isnt considered to be an endangered
species. An adult male leopard can measure up to 190
centimetres in length and weigh up to 90 kilograms.
c Pearson Education Limited 2008
Teacher Support Programme
Leopards are opportunistic hunters and will eat many
different animals. In general, they avoid humans, but
occasionally they do attack people.
Lighthouses: Lighthouses have been used for over two
thousand years to help ships to avoid getting too close to
the coastline. The worlds first lighthouse, the Pharos in
Alexandria, was built in the third century BC and was one
of the original Seven Wonders of the World.
Discussion activities
Before reading
1 Discuss: Talk about the book cover. Have students
work in pairs. Ask them to describe the picture and
answer the following question What do you think is
going to happen in the story?
Pages 17
After reading
2 Discuss: Ask the students to look at the picture on
page 7. What are the men doing? Put the students in
small groups of three or four and tell them to think of
some answers to the question on page 7 How can we
get the leopard out of the lighthouse? If they have no
ideas, you can offer options such as: We can shoot the
leopard. We can put food outside the lighthouse. After
ten minutes or so, ask the groups to present their
ideas to the rest of the class. The class votes on the
best option.
3 Guess: After the role play, and still working in small
groups, ask the students to imagine what is going to
happen next in the story. Call on volunteers to share
their ideas with the whole class.
Pages 815
After reading
4 Role play: Put the students into pairs and ask them
imagine how Tanza feels when her father tell her
about his plan to get the leopard out of the
lighthouse. Ask them the following questions:
Is Tanza happy? Why (not)? Then get the students to
act out a conversation between the two characters.
5 Pair work: Without their partner seeing, each student
in each pair chooses one of the pictures in the book.
Then each student writes two sentences about their
picture, beginning with There is or There are
One of the students in each pair reads out their
sentences and the other student tries to identify the
picture by asking one or two questions. Tell the
students that they can only ask questions which can
be answered by yes or no. For example Are the
men talking?
Vocabulary activities
For the Word List and vocabulary activities, go to
www.penguinreaders.com.
The Leopard and the Lighthouse - Teachers notes  of 1