#15 Fox Tails

Title:  Fox Tails: Four Fables from Aesop

Author:  Amy Lowry

Illustrator: Amy Lowry

Publisher:  Holiday House

Copyright: 2012

Pages:  30

Genre/Category: Traditional Literature

I chose this book because it is a retelling of four fables by Aesop and is recently published book. I also really liked the bright and colorful illustrations.  Fox Tails is the story about a trickster fox who fools everyone to get what he wants. Whether he wants a piece of cheese from a crow, or simply to get out of a hole, the fox is up to no good. In the end, all of the animals the fox tricks band together to play a trick on the fox.

The illustrations in Fox Tails were done in gouache and pencil on cotton paper. I had never heard of a gouache painting before, so I looked it up. Gouache is similar to watercolor, but modified to make it non-transparent. The ratio of pigment to water is greater and it often includes white pigment such as chalk. This technique makes for very bright, solid looking paintings. The illustrations in this book rely mostly on warm colors and the illustrations stretch out across the pages. The animals are realistically painted.

   This is a good book for all ages, especially children in lower grades. This would be a good book for a read aloud and to have students try to predict what is going to happen to the fox in the end. This is also a great introduction to the fable. At the end of the story, the morals for each are given. It also includes an author’s note about fables.