A House in Town

Early one morning, after a night of hunting, a mother fox returns to her children's nest beneath a house to find that their home is being torn down. She creeps to her cubs and hushes them; then the four of them quietly slither away. But, as the foxes head toward the woods, a dog picks up their scent and alerts all the other dogs that there are foxes to catch. The vixen lures the dogs away from her cubs, and with help from the townspeople they manage to escape. The cadence of Mayne's text is rhythmic and distinctive, and brings the foxes' fear vividly to life, while the soft, almost elusive illustrations evoke a haunting scene of foxes on the run. Ages 4-8. (June)