Fantastic Mr. Fox - Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake
I forgot how short this book is. I borrowed it off Libby to read at work on my phone today and finished it in my coffee break at work. I love that Wes Anderson was inspired by this little book to make such an interesting movie - admittedly the themes seen in the movie around midlife fox crises, full on fox and man violence and the pressure of a family man to provide for his evergrowing family are not seen in this children's book, it still has it's merits. It's more impressive that he managed to stretch a 96 page book to a 87 minute movie. I remember really enjoying this book when I was a kid; specially we had our own little family of foxes that lived in the back of our garden (when I lived a small village as opposed to the city) and my dad and I would go out to feed them our scraps every night. Whether this was a kind thing or not as an adult; I can't say but it was often a treat to see them rambling around our garden to 'pilfer' the food we left them with their kits in tow.
The story is simple, Mr Fox steals from gross, nasty and misshapen famers, farmers have had enough of nightly raids so they attempt to murder the fox and his entire family, they dig away from said farmers, the farmers dig after them, they continue to dig until they run into other 'digging' animals leading a raid to dig into the farmer's storehouses where they set up for life in under the ground while the famers are still waiting for ambush them seemingly forever. Short, sweet, funny, silly, a great childhood read.
I feel like if I wanna get fancy-schmancy with my analysis the main moral of this story is when you focus on revenge, you can lose everything. I'll also throw in that Dahl does seem to also focus on the moral ramifications of theft and goes a bit Les Misérables in terms of what's deemed as a good reason to steal compared to other crimes. I.e: Mr Fox only wants to steal to feed his family while the farmers are very set on straight up murder, a much worse crime, ergo his stealing isn't even half as bad! I see you Fox Valjean! Jokes aside, it's quite a fun opener for kids to consider about moral intuitions.
Anywho I feel like there's not much else for me to say other than I think that this one isn't a bad choice for kids - there's nothing too questionable like some of Dahl's other work - I suppose the little foxes drink cider? Their dad gets his tail shot off? If anything I think it would just make kids more sympathetic to the poor foxes. Well... within reason, I don't think kids in the UK should be too sympathetic to urban foxes, those things are scary as fuck. I had a lot of fun! I think returning to so many books I enjoyed as a child this year has been only a good choice. Admittedly as a child I was reading my fair share of gruesome nonsense and books far too adult for me in hindsight but between the Roald Dahl and Lemony Snicket reads, it's been a very healing and positive feeling.
