Take a photo of a barcode or cover
The quotes on the back cover from Katherine Applegate ([b:The One and Only Ivan|11594337|The One and Only Ivan|Katherine Applegate|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1424981397s/11594337.jpg|16536239]) and Ann Martin ([b:Rain Reign|20575434|Rain Reign|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1396393170s/20575434.jpg|39843440]) will confirm for readers of those two books that this one is right up their alley. The best reader would be age 10 to 13, animal-lovers who see themselves as solo champions for wildlife in a world that routinely disregards them.
Peter's father enlists in the army and forces Peter to abandon Pax in the woods when the entire region of the United States is evacuating because the war front is approaching. (I wonder how many readers will wish, as I did, for an occasional mention by any of the characters about the oddity of having an advancing army in a land-locked, forested rural region of the U.S.? In the last few pages of the book, we find out the war is over water, but there's no other information given about who's fighting who. The author lives in both Massachusetts and Florida - this environment felt like midwest or possible northeast, not southeast U.S.)
The story of a dramatic two weeks is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of Peter, a 12-year-old boy, and Pax, the fox he adopted 5 years earlier, shortly after Peter's mother died in a car crash and when the baby fox's entire family was killed during a cold winter.
Even at a distance of 300 miles, when Peter is delivered to his grandfather's house for the duration of the war, he feels a sense of what is happening to Pax, and is immediately and unshakably determined to return and rescue him from the wild, where the fox has no developed survival skills. His attempt to run away and walk 300 miles alone is hopeless, but luckily he happens upon Vola, a hermit survivor of a previous war, who has lived in a rustic backwoods cabin for twenty years nursing her own shame at her violent past and surviving with no electricity and only one leg.
Not everyone wants to hear a story from the point of view of a wild animal. Ordinary instincts come off as frustratingly brainless, hope seems futile, and there is no predicting when the human-centered focus of the pet will turn to nature-centered focus, but it is inevitable.
Here is what happens: Peter and Vola help one another begin to come to terms with their own shame about their violent actions in the past, in part because both of them accept the other as peaceful and compassionate. Since that is how they act in every way save for the most superficial, it's no surprise to the reader that they both are loving people under the surface - Vola's affect is harsh, abrasive, & hostile, but she begins immediately to care for Peter's physical & emotional wounds. Peter's affect is meek, sneaky, reserved, but he's observing subtle emotional content & making bold, sophisticated guesses about her motivations and potential for healing.
It will be easy to get this one into readers' hands, and they won't regret it. And yet, it annoyed me from the first page. The fox has superior senses but a natural incapacity to reason or strategize, while the boy is unable to reason or strategize because he is blinded by the very emotions that motivate him - guilt, love, compassion, fear, anger; why didn't he steal bus fare on the first day, when any idiot could figure out that walking 300 miles would take too long?
The general mood of Klassen's b&w images seems appropriate to the story, yet the foxes faces & bodies are simply too cute and therefore don't seem quite right for a story in which more than half the fox characters die brutally in human traps or explosions. (Question; were the trip wires meant to kill animals? Peter had no trouble avoiding them, even in a hurry on crutches, yet they triggered every time an animal touched them. What did that mean?)
Peter's father enlists in the army and forces Peter to abandon Pax in the woods when the entire region of the United States is evacuating because the war front is approaching. (I wonder how many readers will wish, as I did, for an occasional mention by any of the characters about the oddity of having an advancing army in a land-locked, forested rural region of the U.S.? In the last few pages of the book, we find out the war is over water, but there's no other information given about who's fighting who. The author lives in both Massachusetts and Florida - this environment felt like midwest or possible northeast, not southeast U.S.)
The story of a dramatic two weeks is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of Peter, a 12-year-old boy, and Pax, the fox he adopted 5 years earlier, shortly after Peter's mother died in a car crash and when the baby fox's entire family was killed during a cold winter.
Even at a distance of 300 miles, when Peter is delivered to his grandfather's house for the duration of the war, he feels a sense of what is happening to Pax, and is immediately and unshakably determined to return and rescue him from the wild, where the fox has no developed survival skills. His attempt to run away and walk 300 miles alone is hopeless, but luckily he happens upon Vola, a hermit survivor of a previous war, who has lived in a rustic backwoods cabin for twenty years nursing her own shame at her violent past and surviving with no electricity and only one leg.
Not everyone wants to hear a story from the point of view of a wild animal. Ordinary instincts come off as frustratingly brainless, hope seems futile, and there is no predicting when the human-centered focus of the pet will turn to nature-centered focus, but it is inevitable.
Spoiler
That a 5-year-old fox raised in captivity could learn to hunt from a 1-year-old fox within 10 days, and immediately after a jarring (but non-lethal) head injury from an explosion strains credulity, but no more than the fact that a 12-year-old boy could learn to carve realistic wood sculptures in 3 days, with no prior experience, and also walk some 50 miles alone on crutches and an injured foot, with bleeding blisters on his feet and hands.Here is what happens: Peter and Vola help one another begin to come to terms with their own shame about their violent actions in the past, in part because both of them accept the other as peaceful and compassionate. Since that is how they act in every way save for the most superficial, it's no surprise to the reader that they both are loving people under the surface - Vola's affect is harsh, abrasive, & hostile, but she begins immediately to care for Peter's physical & emotional wounds. Peter's affect is meek, sneaky, reserved, but he's observing subtle emotional content & making bold, sophisticated guesses about her motivations and potential for healing.
It will be easy to get this one into readers' hands, and they won't regret it. And yet, it annoyed me from the first page. The fox has superior senses but a natural incapacity to reason or strategize, while the boy is unable to reason or strategize because he is blinded by the very emotions that motivate him - guilt, love, compassion, fear, anger; why didn't he steal bus fare on the first day, when any idiot could figure out that walking 300 miles would take too long?
The general mood of Klassen's b&w images seems appropriate to the story, yet the foxes faces & bodies are simply too cute and therefore don't seem quite right for a story in which more than half the fox characters die brutally in human traps or explosions. (Question; were the trip wires meant to kill animals? Peter had no trouble avoiding them, even in a hurry on crutches, yet they triggered every time an animal touched them. What did that mean?)