Argyle Fox by Marie Letourneau
My rating: 4/5 cats
this is an adorable children’s picture book about a feisty fox, but it’s also one of those children’s entertainments studded with nuggets of life lessons. this one manages to deliver its message without being cloying or off-putting, which is wonderful, because i am allergic to being told how to live, and i suspect foxen are as well.
young argyle fox wants to play outside, but every game he plays ends up ruined by the ‘rotten, wicked, spiteful’ wind. every time he announces his plans, he is warned by some well-meaning creature or other that this particular game might not work well in the wind, but argyle fox is stubborn and determined, although admittedly, those creatures turn out to be correct every time, even when it comes to games that should totally work in the wind, like pirate or spider, or even soccer.
FWOOOOOSSSHHHH (insert wind-noises here)
d’oh
after five failed attempts, argyle fox is very fed up indeed, and stomps back home, shouting, “I’m never playing in the wind ever, ever, EVER again!” and having himself a good pout.
but mama fox is a wise vixen, and she gently encourages him to think hard and surely he will be able to come up with a game that will be perfect for windy-day play.
and he does, because he is a fox full of cleverness and bags full of tricks, and also because a children’s story that ended in despair would not be very appealing, The Velveteen Rabbit aside.
there are many lessons and values at play here: persistence, overcoming life’s obstacles, resourcefulness, lateral thinking, and creative problem-solving. but it’s also a subtle reminder about all the fun that can be had in the great outdoors, all active and wild and free, because no wind is really going to stop pirate play.
frankly, i’m not sure that most of these are lessons this particular fox really needed to learn, since he proved he was creative and resourceful enough to come up with five ideas all on his own, many of which involved homemade props, but i’m always on board with books that emphasize low-tech, high-imagination funtimes, so a little preaching to the choir is fine by me.
the only real lesson argyle fox might have learned here is the one about “listening to others who are just trying to save you from wasting your time,” but that is a lesson that is NO FUN AT ALL, and it’s important for foxen to discover things for themselves, not to just blindly obey some groundhog.
i also like how sassy argyle fox is. he is taking advice from NO ONE, and he’s not afraid to tap into his predator-impulses:
very cute, very fun, and i’m always here to thumbs-up a good foxen tale.
please excuse the poor quality of the pictures—i got this from netgalley, so they were snapped off of my computer, which, like house of cards on a windy day, is always a bad idea. i will try to remember to re-photograph from the actual book in the future. because obviously i’m going to want to own this one.
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