City Foxes

Title:  City Foxes

Author:  Susan J. Tweit

Illustrator:  Photography by Wendy Shattil

Publisher:  Alaska Northwest Books

Genre:  Informational

Level: Intermediate

Number of Pages: 31  

Pub. Date: 1997

Summary: City Foxes is about a family of foxes that live in a cemetery in the city. It tells their personal story along with highlighting facts about red foxes on each page of the book. In this book, the mother and father red foxes feed and raise 6 kits (baby fox) in a den in a cemetery. The mom and dad take turns going to find food and watching the babies. When the kits are about two months old the family split with the mom taking one baby and the dad taking two. The author thinks that is because one baby still needed to be nursed while the others were ready to start learning how to hunt because normally red fox stay with their babies until they are about five months old and ready to live on their own. The babies grow up and disappear from the cemetery, but next summer a fox that looks just like the mother fox shows up again and raises another family.

Critique: This book is tells a story about how wild animals can live in the wild while teaching children about red fox and their characteristics, habits and facts about them. This is a real-life story that was documented by a wildlife photographer, so the sources are very accurate. There is also a section in the back called “Red Fox Facts” and the photographer’s story of how she was able to capture this touching story.  The book is also backed by the Denver Museum of Natural History which gives it a lot of merit as well.

Response: The setting of my story is very

unique when you think of a wild animal. The Red Fox in the story have found a little oasis in the city where they are somewhat protected from predators and humans. They are found sunbathing on graves and making dens near headstones.  It really got me thinking about how animals have been forced to adapt because the human population has expanded so much and developed so much land. It’s sad to see that they have to find the one grassy area in a city, the cemetery, to survive in that area.

Assignment:

Other works by Wendy Shattil, wildlife photographer: