The Story Behind the Sibling Relationship in Little & Lion

by Brandy Colbert

People often ask where the idea for Little & Lion originated, and while I can’t always pinpoint the basis of my stories, this one is easy: I wanted to write about a brother and sister with a close relationship.

I have four brothers, and it feels strange to say that I’m not particularly close to them, but it’s the truth. The brother I grew up with is six years older than me, so by the time I was twelve, he was out of the house and heading off to college. My parents’ divorce happened around this same time, and a few years later, when I was sixteen, my father had the first of his three children with his second wife. The twins followed two years later. Whereas the age difference with my older brother is vast, the gap between my younger brothers and me seemed almost insurmountable.

In my book, Suzette (Little) and Lionel (Lion) have on the surface the sort of relationship I’ve always coveted with my siblings. I wanted someone to confide in, someone who knew my friend group and was maybe a part of it, and someone who trusted me with their secrets, too. I wanted a sibling who navigated the hardships of adolescence at the same time as me, and who could commiserate when parental discipline was getting us down.

While I did have some of that with my older brother, it was never to the extent of Suzette and Lionel. And as I started working through their relationship, as close as I wanted them to be, I knew that I couldn’t write about perfect siblings. There had to be some conflict to make things interesting for the reader (and for me!). So I started imagining what could complicate their close relationship and how they would deal with those complications.

Another aspect of Little & Lion that is often discussed is that Suzette and Lion aren’t siblings by blood. This was something I set out to explore in the novel, as I’ve been fascinated with blended families since the first time I watched The Brady Bunch. I never lived with my younger siblings, but both of my parents are remarried, and I have a blended family of sorts on both sides now. I moved two thousand miles to Los Angeles when I graduated from college quite a few years ago, and quickly learned that living in a city of transplants means your friends become your family. So while I hadn’t grown up close to any of my siblings, I have a whole group of guy friends who stand in as surrogate brothers, from endless teasing to being there when I really need them.

As I’ve gotten older, my relationship with my older brother has grown in certain ways and changed in others. He’s had to learn to accept that I’m an adult with opinions, thoughts, and experiences of my own, and that I’m no longer the twelve-year-old he left at home all those years ago. And I’ve had to learn to listen to his life advice because he is older than me and has seen and been through experiences I haven’t. Both of us have learned not to discuss politics with each other. And I’m slowly getting to know my younger brothers, especially as they are not so little anymore. The oldest of the three is a recent college graduate, and it’s still nearly impossible for me to wrap my head around the fact that the baby I first held all those years ago is a young man with a job, a car, and a life of his own.

No perfect sibling relationship exists. People are who they are, and blood doesn’t change that. I didn’t know this at the time, but writing about Little and Lion wasn’t just a way for me to explore a sibling dynamic I wasn’t familiar with; it also allowed me to examine my relationships with my own family and appreciate them for what they are.

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

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