He would nod again, but Petie Burkis had never hurried through a book in his life. Still without missing a word, he would flip the remaining pages. He would lift the book so I could see the title and it would be something like Mystery of the Deep. He would be so interested in the book that he wouldn’t even look up to see who I was.

I would go over to Petie’s and he would be sitting on the porch reading. She got “ books” for her birthday Tom actually reads: Tom and Petie. Henkes focused completely on the emotions of his heroine Alice, while her life back home, friends or any hobbies outside of shell collecting were barely acknowledged. Two of the most notable differences between Betsy Byars and Kevin Henkes are that Byars makes use of humour throughout her book and she allows her child protagonist to have actual interests. While the fox plotline creates drama and suspense, the bulk of The Midnight Fox is a quiet and introspective portrait of a lonely nine year old boy on a depressing vacation – comparisons to my previous Castle read, Junonia (a quiet and introspective portrait of a lonely nine year old girl on a depressing vacation), are inevitable.

The Midnight Fox lacks a shiny award sticker on the cover and so I figured the fox’s chance of living to the end of the book was actually fairly high, although Byars got me second-guessing myself several times before it was finished – if your main concern in animal stories is whether the headlining critter lives or dies, please skip to the Violence section of the Parental Guide below. Things change for the better when he catches a glimpse of an elusive black fox, but foxes are not welcome animals on a farm… He’s scared of animals and he misses his best friend Petie Burkis every day. Tom is dismayed – as a comfortable city boy he’s sure to be miserable on Fred and Millie’s farm. The summer before Tom turns ten, his parents send him to stay with his Aunt Millie, Uncle Fred and cousin Hazeline for a couple of months while they embark on a cycling tour of Europe. Animal stories.įirst Line: Sometimes at night when the rain is beating against the windows of my room, I think about that summer on the farm. Putting the finishing touches on this review, I discovered that both she and her illustrator have passed away this year – a clear loss to children’s literature. For those who are also wondering where to begin with Byars, this is quite a good choice. It turns out that my first choice for Betsy Byars was her own favorite among her many books.

The midnight fox by betsy byars