Fox Walked Alone

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Readers who are already familiar with Reid’s 1992 Two by Two, the
story of Noah’s Ark, will likely consider Fox Walked Alone to be its
prequel. This picture book is about how a lone male fox made his way to
the ark where he encountered a vixen, thereby completing the animal
pairings boarding the vessel. Originally, fox had no idea why he changed
his daily schedule to undertake a journey, which saw him following a
growing number of various animal duos that were travelling he knew not
where.

Reid’s lyrical text, essentially composed of rhyming couplets,
contains some drama when fox becomes lost in the dead-end streets of a
ruined city. Encountering a pair of abandoned caged doves, fox frees
them. The birds then fly above the streets to guide him through the city
maze, thereby allowing him to continue on his journey. Reid’s
Plasticine illustrations are once again outstanding, whether they are
single page, double-page spreads, or small inserts on text pages. Young
readers will become engaged in locating the two ravens who shadow the
fox throughout his journey, and will want to revisit the illustrations
in order to leisurely absorb the detail that Reid has unobtrusively
embedded within her artwork. A “must have” addition for school,
church, and public libraries as well as personal collections. Highly
recommended.