| Product: |
Fantastic Mr. Fox - Roald Dahl |
| Date: |
06/12/07 (155 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Compelling story, we cheer on the hero
Disadvantages: paints women as weak by default, relies heavily on illustrations
genre
Comedy, children's drama
age range
5+ if read with adult
7+ if read independantly
Mr Fox is hated by his nemesis Mr Bean and his two accomplices Mr Boggis and Mr Bunce. Mr Fox makes a fine living stealing turkeys, ducks and geese from the three mean men, but one day they decide they have just about had enough.
Elements of the Robin Hood story, are apparent, with Mr Fox stealing from the rich to feed to poor, essentially.
Roald Dahl uses very simple, yet inventive language. His descriptive style is rich and unique. By the same token it is not altogether too challenging for the reader. Dahl does make use of rhyming verse, in order to punctuate this book, and this should make reading aloud fun.
Illustrations are by Quentin Blake, and have become synonymous with this book and others by Roald Dahl, in Fantastic Mr Fox they not only support the text, but are used to make specific visual points, for example the progressive state of the hill.
Blake's work is iconic and give the book a strong sense of identity, it seems the book wouldn't be the same without them, although I am not sure that is a wholly good thing.
Fantastic Mr Fox is an excellent introduction to Roald Dahl's style, and has some lovely language in it without resorting to using 'big' words to become challenging. The story is one of overcoming evil and all odds without being too threatening and I think any child will see most of the jokes. This means that it is both good for confident readers and for ones that need some encouragement, as they should both get a lot out of the reading experience.
I feel that Roald Dahl is an important children's author, and his books and stories have become iconic in British children's culture. I don't love this book, it has some questionable messages, for example that the womenfolk are weak and 'cannot continue digging'.
But I do think that they have been and will continue to be an important aspect in the landscape of children's literature, I think children should have the opportunity to read some of Roald Dahl's work as much as any other important children's author.
Paperback: 96 pages
Publisher: Puffin (June 1, 1998)
Summary: I enjoyed this story, not a huge fan of the author, but would definately reccomend this book
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