Fantastic Mr. Fox Book

My impressions in a single word: Meh.

I recently read this to my little boy, and I have to admit I really didn't care for it.

Don't get me wrong. It's not a *terrible* book. There's nothing hideously wrong with it. (See my review of Esio Trot, if you want to see me go off on a Dahl book I hated.)

But there wasn't much right with it either. The simple fact was Mr. Fox was not, in fact, very fantastic.

The plot centers around some farmers that try to kill Mr. Fox. They try to dig him out of his hole. Fox's clever solution? Dig down so they can't reach him.

But then the farmers dig *faster.*

Fox's clever solution? They should dig away faster.

Eventually they try to starve Mr. Fox and his family out of the hole.

Fox's clever solution? Dig even farther and steal some food.

And that's pretty much the whole book. (Spoiler alert.)

I like my books to have some cleverness in them. If you have a book where the main character is a Fox, and people are going to praise him for being fantastic, he better... y'know... do something if not fantastic, then at least interesting.

If your clever solution to *every* problem is "Dig more" you're kinda just phoning it in.

Also some mild sexism in here. Nothing horrifying like in Esio Trot, but why read a meh book with mild sexism to your kids? There's better stuff out there. Much better.