Fantastic Mr. Fox (Puffin Cover to Cover Story Tape) (Windrush) (The beat of Roald Dahl) (Young fiction read alone) ("Fantastic Mr Fox")

by Roald Dahl

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Oof. Well. I'm giving this a generous two stars. Because the kids will probably delight in it, even if I wouldn't read it to them myself.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is kind of a mess. I don't know how much y'all know about Roald Dahl as a human, but he hated everybody equally. Like the most racist, sexist, "ist" in general cantankerous old grandpa you can imagine. A little bit of that managed to leak through here. The womenfolk are, quite literally, sent to the kitchen to cook while the menfolk go hunting and drink cider (which I'm 90% sure is actually hard cider based on the reactions and conversation). He repeatedly refers to one of the farmers by inappropriate terms for his height... and is just generally #NO.

Now, I didn't read this as a kid, so I don't have an emotional connection to the story. I think that probably would have changed my view. I think that kids are just going to see a family of foxes trying to escape mean old farmers and not starve to death. As an adult, though, I'm seeing between the lines and it makes me cringe a bit.

Even as far as Roald Dahl's books go (which I LOVED as a kid) this one isn't very good. The characters are pretty flat and uninteresting, the moral of the story seems to be that it's okay to commit small crimes as long as it's for your family and survival, and... just... generally there are better books out there. Even better ones by the same author. The illustrations are really cute, though, so that's something I guess?