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Van de Vendel, Edward

Little Fox

88 pp. | Levine Querido | September, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-1-64614-007-7 $18.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-1-64614-065-7 $18.99
(2) K-3 Translated by David Colmer. Illustrated by Marije Tolman. A lively young fox wanders off to explore, falls off a bluff, and hits his head. Now the story becomes Little Fox's dream, in which he recalls the smell of his mother's milk, the first mouse his father brought to the den, and seeing the moon for the first time. Little Fox's memories are full of sensory images ("when you stand in the wind your hair stands on end! And when you turn around, it blows the other way!"). The narration then moves out of Little Fox's dream, this time for double-page spreads of a red-haired child riding a bike across the countryside. Back in the dream, Little Fox recalls an encounter with that child, a time when the child rescued him after he got his head stuck in a glass jar. As the fox wakes, he finds himself rescued once again. This time the child is returning the dazed fox to his woodland home, where "everything is good." Tolman directs the viewer in and out of Little Fox's dream. When Little Fox is awake, the pages are expansive Risograph prints of photographs of Dutch landscapes. Little Fox and the other animals are painted on top of that background, standing out against their environment. Dream sequences are painted against a cream backdrop in soft greens and browns. In both settings, the bright reddish orange of the fox is the focal point, and the fox is visually connected to the red-haired child. The stunning art and immediate, childlike narration combine for an effective exploration of themes of risk, growing up, and connection.
Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2021

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