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Fantastic Mr. Fox is about a family of foxs that steal from three farmers.Mr. Fox asks,'His wife what will it be today?'She says,'Bring me two ploumpy chickens.'He brings her the chickens.
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Roald Dahl is a master of words and his books are veritable treasure troves of rich vocabulary for children of all ages. While writing a unit on this book, I was challenged myself to find the contextual definitions of some of his words. "Cleverest" is one word, I think he probably invented (wouldn't it be "most clever"?), which can be found in these pages. Whether you're looking for a good book for a literature focus unit, a fascinating read-aloud for your students, or just a good read for your child (or yourself!), this book will be a hit!
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There seems to have been a major shift in children's literature recently, thanks, of course, to the pre-eminence of Harry Potter. The latter is a hero parents can be proud of - bespectacled, middle-class, studious: the subtext is education is fun, enlightening and empowering.
The major children's writer before JK Rowling was Roald Dahl, who boasted few of these virtues, offering children cruel wit, and a morbid, often murderous mistrust of parents, adults, education and authority in general. He also implied that children could be malevolent and destructive. Parents hated him - I had to discover Dahl through friends; my mum bought me Enid Blyton. There was always the thrilling feeling that you were doing something illicit or conspiratorial reading Roald Dahl.
The hero of 'Fantastic Mr Fox' is a thief, a violater of property and business, and a murderer and torturer of animals, traits unlikely to endear him to the English middle classes. On the other hand, he rejoices in family values, still endearingly in love with his wife, and a great father. Under impossible odds, he tries to save his family and a host of other animals from the cruelty of three vile farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean, who are sick of the varmint's nocturnal sorties for their produce.
First they try to shoot him, but only pepper his tail (a deliciously gruesome episode). Next they dig into his tunnel, but he can dig faster. They use huge mechanical diggers, turning a hill into a valley. They try to starve him, surrounding the area with weapon-wielding minions.
The story of 'Fox' is very simple with few twists and turns. The impact, however, can be traumatic, and not just for young children - I read this to my wife (as you do), and we both got very anxious for our heroes, faced with the terrifying industrial might of the farmers. The irony of the story is ecological - while trying to save a few goods for business, the farmers nearly destroy the countryside and an entire animal network; the fox can only do what is natural, which is steal and kill (to which Dahl is faithful with admirable unsentimentality). The image of the three farmers waiting, possibly forever, at the hole for the fox to starve, is chilling and close to Beckett.
Once again, Dahl gets a great deal of pleasure in frightening his young audience, and his way with alliterative insults is as delightful as ever, while Quentin Blake's scribbles, though not part of the original book, are now so synonymous with Dahl's world, it's impossible to imagine it without them.
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Right up there with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Danny the Champion of the World and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar as Dahl's best.
The clever Mr. Fox will have you laughing along with him as he outwits the farmers.
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This Roald Dahl story is one of his best books and is fit enough to stand alongside Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as my other favourite title from his early years. Dahl finds himself mastering his craft of storytelling, and the writing really shows. Once you start reading this pacey story, you will be in for a spellbinding and mesmerising surprise because with every turn of a page, an unexpected event lies in store.
Our loyalties are well-defined early in the story, and even despite real-life contradictions, we end up rooting for Mr. Fox and cheering for him as a symbol of good, while at the same time allowing Boggis, Bunce and Bean to symbolise evil. At the part of the story where Mr. Fox's tail is shot off, we feel extremely sorry for our hero. The story takes an unexpected twist with the three farmers showing their greed with their tractors and their fierce measures to get Mr. Fox out of his hole, and is one of those instances where Dahl shows us that greed and selfishness are undesirable in society. But they don't realise the cleverness and handsome nature of Mr. Fox in actually winning the battle by finding a most unusual way into their own larders, where they don't want him to be, and we end up cheering for him in the end during the feast.
Overall, I find that this book is sure to be counted among Roald Dahl's best, and he is certainly right in calling it his best-balanced book. This can be recommended to even older readers and not just to the young, at whom the book is aimed.
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