The Tale of the Tricky Fox

The Tale of the Tricky Fox by Jim Aylesworth
Publisher: Scholastic
Copyright:2001
Number of Pages:30
Age: 6-7 years
Genre: Fantasy

Summary:
In this story its about a little fox and his brother. The tricky fox says to this brother that catching a chicken has become to easy and that the wants to catch a pig from a human. The tricky fox's little brother doubts that he can do it so he offers that if the trick fox could do it he would eat his hat. So the tricky fox went off to the first little house of an old woman. He asks if he can stay there because he is so tired. He brought with him a sack that inside he put a log of wood. The old woman says "yes you can stay here, but no tricks" the fox says "of course not, I'm only worried about my sack, I don't like people looking in it." The old woman said that she would take the sack but promised not to look in it. So the wolf pretended to fall asleep and the woman went and peeked in the sack...considering she couldn't resist. Then she went and fell asleep. As soon as she was sleeping the tricky fox went and took the log out of the sack and placed it in the fire. The next day the fox says to the old woman "what happened to my loaf of bread?!" the old woman was about to say that the fox didn't have a loaf of bread but she remembered her promise that she wasn't going to look in the sack, so she said "I'm not sure. Here have one of mine". Once the fox took the bread he left to the next house. The fox repeated the same scenario with the next 2 houses he went to. The second house he claimed he had a chicken, so the lady gave him a chicken. Then the last house was a pig, however, the old woman was about to give him one of her pigs but as she went outside to fetch the pig she thought she should watch him through the window to see what he would do. She caught him talking about how smart he was, so the old woman went and put a large bull dog in the sack instead. The fox went home and opened the sack with his brother. Once the sack was opened the bull dog chased the foxes away.

Who would benefit from this book?
I think that anyone could benefit from this book. Its a fun story with a good moral that you shouldn't trust anyone that seems to try to decieve you. The old women knew that he as lying and yet they still gave him something of the possessions. Beware!

What problems might this cause?
I couldn't think of any problems this would cause because the fox learns his lesson in the end.

My reaction
My reaction to the book was that I enjoyed it. I really liked seeing how clever the fox was. I thought it was very tricky what he did. I wouldn't have thought of that on my own.