Fox Tails

K-Gr 2—A fox has one busy day and gets his just deserts in this smart joining of four familiar tales: "The Fox and the Grapes," "The Fox and the Crow," The Fox and the Goat," and "The Fox and the Stork." Lowry's tone is at once contemporary and faithful to the economical Aesop accounts of the opportunistic animal. She adds small opening and concluding scenes to present a well-knit cumulative tale. The broad gouache scenes are a deft match for the narrative in simplicity and clever detail. As the fox decides the grapes are sour anyway he's watched by an unmentioned observer, the stork who will play a big role later. The fox next meets the gullible crow and later becomes so busy congratulating himself on flattering her out of her chunk of cheese that he stumbles into a stinky empty well. A passing goat is pressed into joining him and providing his escape. Readers will enjoy humorous innuendo in many scenes—the expressive frogs in the well, the shadowy animal figures in tree roots and well walls, the cookbook titles on stork's bookshelves. She's having the fox over as a supper guest and invites the crow and the goat to come and watch as she repays his bad hosting. That soup served in tall narrow jars has the crow and goat rolling on the floor in laughter and sends the angry fox stalking out the door, heading "home to bed hungry." Though incorporated in each episode, the usual moral doesn't always stand out as a lesson, but it is listed again in the author's brief closing note on Aesop. These cheerful encounters offer wide appeal for reading aloud and will be equally fun for early readers new to Aesop and those already familiar with the venerable tales.—Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston