Fox's Showing Off Usually Doesn't Pay Off

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of discovering James Marshall's Fox books. Unfortunately, I soon exhausted my library's supply, but now, thanks to Inter-Library Loan, I've been able to reacquaint myself with the feisty fox with the obvious name. In Fox Be Nimble, the incorrigible creature is up to all his old tricks with three stories focusing on his flair for the over-dramatic.

The first stories, Fox Be Famous, is longer than the other two put together and involves a disastrous day of reluctant baby-sitting, a theme Marshall revisits throughout the series. Usually it's Fox's sister Louise who needs to be looked after, but in this case, it's a trio of neighboring bears. I don't know if the Ling family is unique to this book, but I've never encountered them before. We don't really learn anything about them as individuals - even their names - but there are two girls, one with brown fur and one with gray, and one boy, who has white hair. This seems suspect to me, since bears of the same species don't tend to have such dramatic variations in color, but if I can accept a fox who wants to be a rock star, I suppose I can accept bears of three different colors in the same family.

Oh, yes, a rock star. Fox wants to be famous. That's how the story starts, with him showing off his skills to an admiring Louise. He's so sure that babysitting is so beneath him, he refuses to obey his mother's instructions to go, and when that fails, he leaves the bears to their own devices. That's a problem, though, because if one little sister is a heap of trouble, imagine what three rambunctious bears can do! Fox does get a dose of fame in this story, but not of the sort he expected. This is a very funny tale.

Fox the Brave is a sarcastic title because Fox makes a huge fuss when he scrapes his knee after tripping on one of his own skates. He demands a doctor, which Louise summons while his mother chides him for being so silly. After making the call, Louise takes a terrible tumble on one of Fox's remaining skates and is laid up as well, with even more serious injuries than Fox. But how will she react to her misfortune? I find this story even funnier than the first because Fox is just so eager to feel sorry for himself, as we see in the illustrations where his eyes are slanted in displeasure and his tongue is lolling in misery. His mom, who sees right through him, is entertaining too, and Louise helps the tale come to a clever conclusion.

Fox on Parade is the weakest of the stories, I think, though it's still good. Fox keeps getting into trouble at band practice because he's always showing off with his bugle. His teacher, a gruff-looking alligator in a beret, finally gets fed up and tosses him out of class, where he meets up with his friend Raisin, who shows him another way he might distinguish himself in the upcoming parade. One element I missed in this story was Mrs. O'Hare, who has complementary comical run-ins with Fox and Louise in the first two stories. It looked like it was a running joke, but then it was dropped, which left me feeling a bit unfulfilled. Also, Fox is basically rewarded for his self-centeredness rather than having any negative consequences, as he does in the first two stories.

Overall, though, this book is another worthy installment in the Easy-to-Read series. Between the terse writing style and the cartoonish, comical illustrations, Fox Be Nimble is quick to tickle the funny bone.