Eagle Book Club

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a children’s story about a wily fox that steels food and cider from three neighboring farmers. Eventually, the farmers decide that the thieving fox must die, so they devise a plan to hunt down and kill the fox. Fortunately for Mr. Fox’s family and friends, Mr. Fox always finds a way to outsmart his pursuers.

I read this book to my six-year-old son and we both enjoyed it. The book is ninety pages long, so I read him the first half in the morning and the second half in the afternoon to keep from losing his attention. Later that night we watched the movie together and both of us liked the movie even more. Even though the movie contains most of the same characters and uses several lines from the book, the movie is considerably different. To begin with, the entire premise of why Mr. Fox is stealing is completely different in the movie compared to the book. In the book, Mr. Fox steals from the three farmers to feed his family with the support and admiration of his wife. In the movie, Mr. Fox is a "reformed" thief who now writes an article for the local paper and his wife is utterly opposed to his thievery. Another major difference is the character Kristofferson who has a major role in the movie but is not mentioned in the book. As Mr. Fox’s nephew, Kristofferson is very athletic and causes Mr. Fox’s wimpy son a great deal of grief.

Overall, I liked the book and the movie. Even though both contained the same basic premise, they were very different stories. As a kid, I always heard stories from my parents about how crafty a fox could be. They would tell me to make sure I didn’t leave the cats out at night or a fox might get them. After several warnings from my parents, I was always on the lookout for a fox sneaking around our yard.

Most children’s books portray animals as having the same characteristics as humans; however, this movie placed special emphasis on the fact that animals are wild by nature. After being chastised by his wife on several occasions, Mr. Fox would explain his behavior by saying that he is just a wild animal after all. The movie and the book also did an excellent job of displaying the special skills of each animal involved in the story. Each animal’s skill played an integral part of the group’s survival and eventual successful community.