Hattie and the Fox

Hattie the Hen lives on a farm with the goose, pig, sheep, horse and cow. One day she spots something suspicious in the bushes. She warns the other animals but they are apathetic. More and more of the thing reveals itself until Hattie realizes it's a fox. Her pronouncement turns apathy to frenzy; the cow's loud moo scares the fox away. The animals are so surprised that they remain silent. Readers hope that in the future, Hattie's words will be given more importance by the barnyard animals. Author Fox builds the suspense in this cumulative tale with precise pacing. Mullins uses tissue-paper collage and crayon to create an unusual effect, both fuzzy and comic. The animals whether watchful predator, the lethargic barnyard variety or an alert Hattieare wonderfully expressive and characterized.

About The Author

Mem Fox was born in Australia, grew up in Africa, studied drama in England, and returned to Adelaide, Australia in 1970, where she has lived with her husband, Malcolm, and daughter Chloë, happily ever after.

Mem Fox is Australia’s most highly regarded picture-book author. Her first book, Possum Magic, is the best selling children’s book ever in Australia, with sales of over four million. And in the USA Time for Bed and Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge have each sold over a million copies. Time for Bed is on Oprah’s list of the twenty best children’s books of all time. Mem has written over thirty five picture books for children and five non-fiction books for adults, including the best-selling Reading Magic, aimed at parents of very young children. Her recent book: Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, beautifully illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, was on the New York Times bestseller lists for 18 weeks in 2008/2009. It also won the ‘best book for 0-3 year olds’ award (May 2010) at the International Book Fair in Turin, in its Italian edition.

Mem Fox was an Associate Professor in Literacy Studies at Flinders University in Adelaide (Australia), where she taught teachers for twenty four years until her early retirement in 1996. She has received many civic awards, honours and accolades in Australia, including two honorary doctorates. She has visited the United States over one hundred times, mostly in her role as a literacy expert although she is also a well-known author in America. She is an influential international consultant in literacy, but she pretends to sit around writing full time.

Her latest book is A Giraffe in the Bath. She hopes four year olds, and over, including adults, will adore it.