How to Find a Fox

This collection of images by Finnish wildlife photographer Saarinen offers enthralling looks at young foxes photographed so that their golden eyes, smooth black paws, and bushy tails seem near enough to reach out and touch. To accompany them, Gardner (Lovely Beasts) provides instructions for fox-finding, revealing when the animals are active (“You can look in the spring,/ or the summer,// or the autumn...// or even the winter”), and teasing readers by telling them where foxes won’t be found: “DON’T look in the sky,” she writes, where readers see three flying birds, “or the trees,” where readers see a squirrel. Simple phrases appear in larger type in the upper parts of spreads, while blocks of smaller text below supply more detail (“Foxes don’t hibernate; they spend the whole year out and about”). The figures are shown in poses that accentuate their grace and curiosity; they’re not seen chasing prey or eating. Larger photographs of forest and lake scenes offer calm, and pictures of other wildlife creatures round out this introduction to foxes—and, more broadly, to wildlife and scenery of a part of the natural world. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Kirsten Hall, Catbird Productions. Photographer’s agent: Elizabeth Bewley, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Sept.)