Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks

Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks, is about the tight and close friendship of Dog and Magpie, but was interfered by a cunning, jealous, sneaky, and lonely Fox. Fox used his sly ways to encourage Magpie to leave Dog so she could experience how flying feels like again because she could never fly again from her burnt wing. Magpie finally agreed and they left Dog without informing him. As I read the story for the first time, the first thing I felt was a lot of resentment towards Fox. However, when I learned about looking closely at a text with purpose to figure out why Fox acted that way, my hatred towards him began to fade away.

When Fox and Magpie ran into the red hot desert, the text stated, "Then Fox shakes Magpie off his back as he would flea, and pads away. He turns and looks at Magpie, and he says, now you and Dog will know what it is like to be truly alone." This sentence has provoked me with understanding for this character. It was this line that made me understand more about why Fox is acting harsh toward a beautiful friendship by breaking it up. In the middle of the story, the author used loneliness to describe Fox, but I didn't take it seriously because all I was thinking was he has a cold heart. I put a blind eye to this word. Then, after reading this text thoughtfully several times, I realized that he did it as his solution to release his pain, and how he doesn't have any friends so he thinks that since he doesn't, he won't let other people to be friends. He was envious but it's from his great loneliness that made him do such thing. Even though it looks like a simple reading, it is not, because this is more about humans. The characters may be a friendly use to be in a picture book, but it's about us. It's about the ways of humans and understanding them to why someone like Fox would separate Magpie and Dog so he could feel better. Fox just wanted a friend and when he feels nobody will accept him, he tries to break other people's friendship.

I was surprised that I actually feels sympathy towards Fox, since he was described with so many negative words sprinkled throughout this complex picture book. Now I'm very glad that I had looked closely at this character. It has taught me how the meanest or the person I really don't like actually has an important reason to why they are acting this way. This connects to how in real life, there are inspirational people and people who we think are not doing the right thing, however there's always a reason to their actions. Children might not understand it, but if they try to stand in the other person's shoes, it could help us bring more forgiveness and tolerant toward them. This is important because this shows how we are trying to accept that person, this could lead them to think that there are people who actually accept them. This could give them hope in changing as a person. So I really had more understanding towards Fox after reading it several times on this character than just reading it once.