Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Fox by Margaret Wild, ill. Ron Brooks
“Hurt creatures hurt creatures.” Initially I heard about today’s book on the podcast The Sartorial Librarian, and they discussed it so brilliantly that I absolutely had to grab it for our recording today. This is an Australian title that somehow has escaped the greater notice of America until now. We aim to change this! Originally published in 2000 in Australia and American in 2001, this is unlike any other book you’ve ever seen. From the typography to the writing the deeply disturbing and wonderful storytelling at work, we dive deep into this one. By the way this book is out-of-print at the moment, so if some small publisher with a smart head wants to bring out a book about how animals suffer after wildfires (particularly in the Australian landscape) this is an ideal title to consider. Bring it back!
Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, PlayerFM, Audible, Amazon Music, or your preferred method of podcast selection.
Show Notes:
If you’d be interested in seeing our full roster of ratings until this point in time, find them here!
We are talking about dogs in Australian but we are NOT talking about Bluey, people! It is entirely possible that this dog is, in fact, a dingo. And that magpie is having NONE of all this.
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This is a hard first page of text to beat. Not only does it look cool, but it gives SO much background, context, and character development in a scant amount of space. “We got drama, we got wildfires, we got vulnerability, we got friendship – all on the first page!!!”
These eyes. Look at the work that Ron Brooks put into this image. This haunts you. According to the Sartorial Librarians, this is the image.
“You just became his Gingerbread Man, baby”. Y’all understand what I mean when I say that, right?
Betsy Recommends: The Steppenwolf Theatre
Kate Recommends: Meals on Wheels
Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate
About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Kirkus, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on BlueSky at: @fuse8.bsky.social
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Absolutely LOVE this book!! I use it in my third grade class with an activity called “hot seat”…after I read this to the class (and it is a super read aloud…so easy to make it sound good!), they write questions they want to ask each of the characters that are not answered in the book. Then, in turns, sets of three kids choose which of the three—Dog, Magpie, or Fox—they want to portray, and they answer a question each in character. It’s called hot seat because they have no idea what question they will get, and have to come up with something on the spot. We talk about how they were able to do that (making inferences) afterwards.
I don’t just throw the kids in at the deep end…before this, I read The Bearskinner, and answer their questions myself in character as the Bearskinner so they know how the process works!
Thanks for sharing this wonderful and thought-provoking title!!
Bill:)
Oh my god. You follow this up with The Bearskinner? That is friggin’ brilliant. Dang, I wish I could have sent my kids to your class.
Awww… thanks!
I also do a mock Caldecott with my kids every year…your lists (and a few others online) are HUGE helps to put together our selections to look at! MANY thanks!!