Wild Fox

June 28, 1993
``Have you ever touched the nose of a wild red fox? I have.'' With this pleasingly disconcerting opening, Mason leads readers into the wonder of her relationship with an unexpected backyard visitant. When a maimed fox accepts her offering of chicken, Mason grows curious about her skittish forest neighbor and deliberates about how far she should intervene in saving his life. Vicky--as the fox comes to be called--savors Mason's treats (especially blueberry muffins), although he never abandons his wild nature. But one memorable night, as friends watch ``the rippling pink and lavender curtains of the northern lights,'' the bushy-tailed animal joins the group--a leaping, somersaulting form among spellbound human shadows. Surrounded by Stammen's strikingly poignant and elegantly rendered pastel illustrations, the book's sustantial text rests not on poetic power alone, but also on the natural eloquence of a truly told event. Indeed, Mason checks tender yearnings with a conversational tone, weaving in pertinent facts and telling of experiences rather than of feelings, all of which lend force to the softly dramatic and bittersweet ending. Mason communicates her innate awe at reaching across the chasm that separates civilized intelligence from feral instinct, and her riveting book pinpoints that charged, mysterious intersection where humans can meet the wild without taming it. Ages 5-13.