The Midnight Fox: 1 (Faber Children's Classics)

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Betsy Byars - Wikipedia Betsy Byars - Wikipedia

Midnight's powers don't exactly have a specific name. They look like electricity and have almost identical effects. They basically look exactly like lightning if it was red. This power comes out of her tail and hands and is powerful enough to destroy a whole city in under 7 minutes. Ted Hughes had a lifelong interest in mythology and considered his fox to be totemic. At times of stress …for example, while overloaded with work when studying at Cambridge University … he dreamed of a fox-man figure who urged him to be gentle with himself, to avoid destroying his creative impulse. This was a great winter day's read, so well written, with characters I could believe in and care about and with the creative, funny thinking of Tom and his love for the fox he discovers driving it forward.The voice is that of the poet, the first person singular ‘I’. The present tense gives a sense of immediacy and excitement. The Midnight Fox was first published in 1968, and is recommended for readers over the age of nine. With their beautiful new reprint, Faber & Faber believe that ‘This enchanted tale will capture the hearts and imagination of children and adults alike’. It's safe to say I didn't have any sort of expectations. From the name and cover, it looked like it was going to be a bit twee and without much merit, but I was pleasantly surprised, as I mentioned. It's definitely Michael Morpurgo-esque (although as it might predate him, I guess that should be the other way around), and I mean that in a good way. It's a story about a slightly troubled child and a bond with an animal, as many of his are, but there is also some real emotion in the book. The tone is dream-like and mysterious; the imagined time is midnight, clearly a time of creativity. I also thought the way the author described the inner thoughts of the protagonist was really good, and reminded me of just the sort of things I would catch myself thinking when I was younger (and maybe occasionally today too, if I'm being honest). The tone was just right, and they were just outlandish enough to be realistic children's thoughts.

Year 5/6 Additional text-based unit – The Midnight Fox by

my fox is better than an ordinary fox. It will live for ever, it will never suffer from hunger or hounds. I have it with me wherever I go. And I made it … through imagining it clearly enough and finding the living words.'There is some controversy around feeding the foxes in your garden, but if you feed them in the right way, they can bring a huge amount of joy to your family.

Fox Poem Summary and Analysis | LitCharts The Thought Fox Poem Summary and Analysis | LitCharts

In some ways, fox paw prints also look similar to cat prints, but since cats can retract their claws, their prints don’t have claw marks. Fox droppings (or scat) are much easier to tell apart than dog droppings. Fox droppings are typically dark, long and squiggly, and tapered at one end - dog droppings can be much bigger and messier. It has been a very long time since I first read this book. I'm not sure what made it pop into my head, but I am glad it did. Right from the beginning I was hooked. What a lead!This book is character driven. The characters are rich, rounded and realistic characters. No stereotypes. No platitudes. No fear of offending. No judgements. The fat girl asks for a banana spread with peanut butter when she's stressed. Yes, that's what fat people do. They use food to manage their unhappiness. And thin people don't eat when they are stressed. That's real life. Betsy Byars has created two imaginative boys, Tommie and Petie, aged nine going on ten, who are separated and who write to each other. Nice idea. The powerlessness of the main character in the last chapter I thought was also very appropriate, given it's a young boy away from home at a relation's house. It's exactly reminiscent of how you feel as a child when things aren't going your way, especially when your parents aren't there for you to appeal to. The book as a whole was nicely believable, and I didn't have to suspend my disbelief at all, which is often the case with Morpurgo's books. A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature. The poem comprises six stanzas of four lines each, known as quatrains. There is no regular rhyme scheme, but consonant rhyme scattered here and there, for example, for example, ‘live’ and ‘move’ in stanza one. There is no set metre but enjambed line ends create rhythm that imitates the sinuous movement of the fox. This book looks through kids' eyes. Kids don't want to be dumped by their parents for two months. City kids don't necessarily want to go to the country. They don't want to leave their friends to stay with people they hardly know. This book respects that children have their own lives independent of their family life. I like that.