In the "Secret Lion- and "A&P- the authors use life lessons that each character learns in a difficult and harsh way. They (the authors) are able to convey these messages to readers by defining character traits, motivations and character changes. In the end, each character gains a sense of self-respect and a new awareness for life. .
In the "Secret Lion- the twelve-year-old boy and his friend Sergio do not like change, however change is inevitable for them. The "lion- used in this story represents the change that each boys does not know is "hunting- them until it is too late. It is a story about two twelve-year-old nave boys who don't like change. They are curious, independent and rebellious. .
They enjoy pretending that they are something that there are not. In doing so they meet the "lion- of the story. They started school in junior high for the first year and found that much change had taken place since their cozy existence in elementary school. Each of them found that instead of one teacher that they dependent on they in fact had many teachers that dependant on them. The girls that they were once friends with, now different in size and grace ignored them. The felt as though they could have been in some kind of strange world. To them change was too dramatic. They needed to know that what was always the same never changed. .
So after school, the both of them went where it was always the same, the arroyo. Each of them would scream loud every dirty word they knew, because who was there to stop them. They were used to this way of living, doing what felt right even if they knew it was wrong. They lived in this existence because it was something that no one knew about but them, their "secret lion-. Nothing changed the direction of a lion once it is on its prowl. They enjoyed the arroyo until the "secret lion- attacked it. Each day they would swim in their "childhood- which was the arroyo until the treatment plant started emptying their sewage into the river.