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4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
Read this aloud to my 11 year old daughter. We loved it, it is the perfect mix of gentle suspense and heartwarming. The main fox characters are so easy to love and cheer for and the fox villains help show just how difficult and dangerous life in the wild can be. A perfect mix of various predators that present challenges for young fox kits. We loved how each of the characters were woven together to create a lovely story. It was hard to put it down each day and not read just a bit more to find out what happened. This is the perfect “scary story” for October for a more sensitive animal loving child. The touches of suspense are scattered throughout so much sweetness that it made it easy to handle. Makes you also think about how our human impact effects the animal world, even with our best intentions. The Beatrix Potter reference as a potential villain was a surprise and done quite well. After all, she is a beloved storyteller and I loved how the author gave a perspective from an animals point of view. I highly recommend this book!
adventurous
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
“I could get a den nearby,” he said. “I could come say hi sometimes, and we could go hunting or something…”
Review for Battle of the Books 2023
313 pages. White male author. Divided into 8 “short stories” that come together. Foxes who are having the stories told to them don’t have names at first (are referred to as alpha, beta, and then numerically by birth order). Lyrical writing, very fairy tale/fable vibes, makes questions difficult. Descriptions are pretty visceral, in a circle of life kind of way. Not recommended for Battle.
313 pages. White male author. Divided into 8 “short stories” that come together. Foxes who are having the stories told to them don’t have names at first (are referred to as alpha, beta, and then numerically by birth order). Lyrical writing, very fairy tale/fable vibes, makes questions difficult. Descriptions are pretty visceral, in a circle of life kind of way.
Spoiler
First story: rabies. Second story: Disabled fox and basically an abusive father who wants to kill him, sister dies. Third story: back to foxes from story one. Caught by Beatrix Potter, who is definitely made to be a villain in the story. Fourth story brings the two storylines together. This book is just trauma left and right, but ends nice enough.
adventurous
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Listened with my 10 year old and it was pretty entertaining.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
dark
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
Happy endings don’t make it any less scary.
While each turn of the page provided fresh horrors faced by sweet fox kits, this book was the best book I've read all year. It is definitely not for the faint of heart. Sour stories mixed with sweet only to be rewoven back through the yellow and the muck. Here is a tale of resilience, of loyalty, of all the joys and sorrows present in life.
I would say this book is geared more towards older readers (upper middle school age to young adults) rather than juveniles or other "young foxes".
I would say this book is geared more towards older readers (upper middle school age to young adults) rather than juveniles or other "young foxes".
I read this one aloud to my kids, and all three of us loved it. Just enough scares, sly humor, characters we really cared about, plenty of conflicts. My kids begged for a sequel. I kind of cried while reading the end.
I really enjoyed this book. I thought it had strong elements of horror, although the book is geared towards younger audiences (I mean, I assume so considering I bought it in the young readers section of a Barnes and Noble). The world building from a foxes point of view (or, smell) made for an enriched read. I will def reccomend this to my friends.