Rosie's Walk Is a Liability for a Hungry Fox

Foxes and poultry. It’s an age-old rivalry, and it’s come up time and again in children’s literature, whether it’s Jemima Puddleduck nearly being taken in by a wily red-haired stranger or a trio of resourceful biddies using their eggs as weapons against their long-snouted invaders. In Rosie’s Walk, a 1968 picture book by Pat Hutchins, the fox doesn’t stand a chance against Rosie - even though she is completely oblivious to his presence.

Rosie’s Walk is a book that depends almost entirely upon visuals. The text consists of exactly one sentence. Granted, it’s a bit of a run-on, with 32 words and a slew of prepositional phrases, but still, that’s not much writing to hang a story on. The print is thin, black and quite large, and with the exception of the first two-page spread and the final page, we never see more than three words at a time. Rosie walks across, around, over, past, through and under, opening up an opportunity to discuss spatially-oriented words with children, much the way the Berenstain Bears’ Inside, Outside, Upside-Down does.

But the real fun of the story is in the pictures. That single sentence by itself isn’t likely to get any child’s attention without the illustrations, which are stark and stylized, having almost a stained-glass look to them. The outlines are thick and the colors are bold. There’s no blue or purple to be found; this is all reds, oranges, yellows and greens, with the occasional brown tossed it for good measure.

The fox who pursues Rosie the hen on her leisurely stroll is never named in the text, but he is certainly the most dynamic character. As Rosie nonchalantly trots along, she inadvertently sets a series of traps for her would-be captor. When she saunters past a rake, he walks right into it, and it smacks him in the face. She makes her way lightly over the haystack, but when he tries it, he sinks. Each segment of the story shows the fox about to attempt whatever Rosie just did, while the next two-page spread shows him failing miserably.

Take your time reading this one so there’s a chance to guess at what exactly will befall the fox next. The disasters intensify as the story goes on, so that by the time the beehives show up, you just know there’s no chance of this poor predator achieving his goal. In fact, he’ll be lucky to emerge from his ordeal with his limbs intact. This is a fairly quiet farmyard, with no livestock milling about, unless you count the single goat who seems to eye the fox with amusement. But there are several small animals just out enjoying nature as Rosie is, so there’s ample opportunity for identification. Keep an eye out for a butterfly, a pair of frogs, a bird, two mice, a grasshopper and a cheeky groundhog.

This quaint book is one of many that I’ve discovered thanks to 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up, a gift given to me by a fellow lover of quality children’s literature. Rosie’s Walk, ideal for youngsters around the preschool range, certainly qualifies.