Fox Goes North

Fox  is sitting in the middle of the road, just sitting. Her little blue suitcase is beside her. Why? What is she waiting for? Fox just has a feeling that something unusual; something exciting is going to happen. And then – a house on wheels appears. A house that is pulled by Moose, driven by Bear while Toucan who has a magnetic beak always pointing north, directs them. They are going North to see the Northern Lights. This is what Fox has been waiting for. So begins a journey with these four – and Young Llama who just arrives as does argumentative Little Owl. It will be a journey of discovery as they learn to get along together a journey that becomes more and more important for fox, a journey that will have challenges to overcome. But how will it end?

This is more than just a story, a quirky quest with a cast of eccentric animals. It is a thoughtful fable that handles big themes – themes of life and loss – with a lightness of touch and a gentle humour. The characters have personalities that leap off the page to engage the reader. The journey may not involve dragons – but there is real jeopardy that one might encounter travelling north – a forest fire, wolves – while even the everyday tasks are recounted in such a way as to bring a smile to the face. The prose moves effortlessly. The reader is engaged from the moment the story start s ’One autumn morning…’ Descriptions are immediate, vocabulary exciting and varied, dialogue brisk, keeping the action moving and interest alert. Adding to the experience are the emotive illustrations by Heegyum Kim. The artist has chosen to create her images using blue crayon alone. This picks up the emotional mood of the narrative perfectly – a gentle backdrop to this funny group of travellers who will become friends. The illustrations range from whole page spreads to delicate page decoration – again suiting the pace of the story. Here words and images work as one.

Jeremy Strong was well known for his humorous books aimed at this particular KS2 age. This was his final book written while facing terminal cancer. In his afterword he hopes that readers will see it as his ‘thank you’ for a lifetime of story writing, that it is special. Indeed it is.