“But Mr. Fox was too clever for them. He always approached a farm with the wind blowing in his face, and this meant that if any man were lurking in the shadows ahead, the wind would carry the smell of that man to Mr. Fox’s nose from far away.”
“Then Mrs. Fox got shyly to her feet and said, ‘I don’t want to make a speech. I just want to say one thing, and it is this: MY HUSBAND IS A FANTASTIC FOX.‘”
“Why don’t we build a nest and raise our ducklings right in this pond? There are no foxes and no turtles, and the people feed us peanuts. What could be better?”
Discovered as a foundling in a lambing pen, Spider Sparrow grows up surrounded by animals. From sheep and horses to wild otters and foxes, Spider loves them all, even the crows must scare away the newly sown wheat.
“There were sure to be foxes in the woods or turtles in the water, and she was not going to raise a family where there might be foxes or turtles. So they flew on and on.”
It features a fox - the depiction of foxes in children’s books being an interest of mine - but in the end, I found that the foxy content was minimal, and that Goldie might just as easily have been another kind of wild animal, for all the difference it makes to the story.
“She opened it and there stood the wolf. He bowed gravely and said, Good day, Miss Kitty, so pert and pretty. What is it that you cook today?′ The cat answered, ‘Bread I bake and cake so fine. Would it please you, sir, to dine?”
“Mistress Fox was regarded in the village as a ‘great beauty.’ Master Wolf was not the only gentleman to think of presenting himself as a suitable mate - but he was the first to do so.”