Ideal as an early introduction to Roald Dahl just as a child is starting to read alone because it’s a short story by comparison to some of his others. Filled with quirky black and white illustrations by the wonderful Quentin Blake that complement the story so beautifully. As three of the nastiest and most crooked farmers vow to wreak revenge on the foxes eating their chickens, little do they know what the foxes have in store for them.
"On a hill above the valley there was a wood. In the wood there was a huge tree. Under the tree there was a hole. In the hole lived Mr Fox and Mrs Fox and their four Small Foxes. . . " Mr Fox is a very clever fox - every evening he creeps down into the valley and helps himself to food from the nearby farms. Chickens from Farmer Boggis, ducks and geese from Farmer Bunce, and turkeys from Farmer Bean. But now the farmers have had enough, and together they hatch a plan to get rid of Mr Fox for good! But what they don't know is Mr Fox has some help, and a fantastic escape plan of his own... The text in this edition of Fantastic Mr Fox was updated in 2022 for young independent readers.
Roald Dahl was born in Wales of Norwegian parents – the child of a second marriage. His father and elder sister died when Roald was just three. His mother was left to raise two stepchildren and her own four children. Roald was her only son.
He had an unhappy time at school - at Llandaff Cathedral School, at St Peter’s prep school in Weston-super-Mare and then at Repton in Derbyshire.
Dahl’s unhappy time at school was to influence his writing greatly. He once said that what distinguished him from most other children’s writers was “this business of remembering what it was like to be young”. Roald’s childhood and schooldays are the subject of his autobiography Boy.
Since Roald Dahl’s death, his books have more than maintained their popularity. Total sales of the UK editions are around 37 million, with more than 1 million copies sold every year! Sales have grown particularly strongly in America where Dahl books are now achieving the bestselling status that curiously proved elusive during the author’s lifetime.
