THE TALE OF TRICKY FOX

A veteran educator, Aylesworth slips young would-be tricksters a friendly warning in this trippingly retold folktale. Boasting that he’s slyer than any human, Tricky Fox sets out to parlay a piece of firewood into a pig. Passing himself off as a weary traveler, he’s successful at first, exchanging the wood for a loaf of bread, and the loaf for a chicken. But the woman who owns the pig happens to be a teacher and, as we all know, “teachers are not so easy to fool as regular humans.” Fox hauls his heavy sack home in triumph—only to discover not a pig inside, but a bulldog. McClintock gives her finely detailed illustrations a 19th-century cast and look, with a bushy-tailed fox capering about on hindlegs, long-dressed, buttoned-down women with pinned-up hair, and everyone with slightly oversized heads to make facial expressions easier to see. With Tricky Fox’s gleeful jingle—“I’m so clever—tee-hee-hee! / Trick, trick, tricky! Yes, siree! / Snap your fingers. Slap your knee. / Human folks ain’t smart like me.” —for a chorus, this lighthearted caper from the creators of Aunt Pitty Patty’s Piggy (1999) is made for reading aloud. Source note. (Picture book/folktale. 6-8)