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MRS. FOX by John Erwin

MRS. FOX

By

Pub Date: Feb. 1st, 1969
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Never kind--but always interesting"" is the best assessment of Mrs. Fox, and her distinctive combination of highhandedness, daring and pride keeps a rather dry story from stagnating; but the tone is perhaps too austere, the telling too uninflected for the younger child who equates animal fantasy with fun, and the book, although smallish, is not physically inviting. Mrs. Fox, however, is a rare specimen: stealing a baby monkey because she needs a thumb to open a cache of tin cans; raising Thumb sternly but sensibly; challenging and besting Mrs. Wildcat by pretending to bite a nail in two, by contriving to climb a tree; demonstrating how she got her (homemade) diving medals; dynamiting the wolves who are encroaching on the ""civilized part"" of the forest. And then there's her final gracious concession: she'll take dinner with Bruin to please Thumb. Much that is good in a matrix that is not likely to go.