Mr Badger and Mrs Fox 1: The Meeting
By (Author) Brigitte Luciani
Illustrated by Eve Tharlet
Lerner Publishing Group
Graphic Universe
1st February 2010
United States
Children
Fiction
741.5
Hardback
32
Width 220mm, Height 276mm
336g
Grub, Bristle, and Ginger agree on only one thing: badgers and foxes cannot be friends. But when hunters chase Ginger and her mother out of their den, Mr. Badger and Mrs. Fox decide they should all live together. Grub, Bristle, and Ginger have a BIG PLAN to change their parents' minds . . . but it's going to take a lot of cooperation to prove that they just can't get along! This is the first book in the Mr. Badger and Mrs. Fox series.
"This picture-book-size graphic novel involves two single-parent animal families--Mr. Badger, his two sons Bristle and Grub, and baby daughter Berry; and Mrs. Fox and her daughter Ginger. After hunters destroy the Foxes' home, the adults meet and decide to share a burrow. Not happy with this arrangement, Bristle, Grub, and Ginger organize an open-house party to convince their parents that badgers and foxes should not live together. The story has enough action to keep readers' interest and a dramatic resolution. The theme of children in blended families is well developed without being didactic. With some help from adults, beginning-level readers will be able to read the comic-style text balloons and follow the panels. The soft watercolor illustrations evoke the summer forest setting and move the story along. A good start to a new series."
--School Library Journal
"Wooden dialogue weighs down this woodsy graphic tale of two single-parent families getting together. Routed out of their den by hunters, Mrs. Fox and her daughter, Ginger, wangle an invitation to stay the night with Mr. Badger and his kits, Grub, Bristle and the baby. The grown-ups click immediately; the young folk--particularly hostile, unsocialized only-child Ginger--start off, at least, at war. Arranged in squared-off graphic panels, several to a page, Tharlet's uncluttered, fluidly brushed watercolor scenes are easy to follow as the young folk squabble about games and other issues but eventually come together over plans for a big moving-in party. Unfortunately the conversation as translated by Burrell too often runs to blocky lines--"We cannot return to our burrow. It is all destroyed"--and there is little suspense about the eventual outcome, giving this purposeful but promising series an uneven start. Still, it's hard not to warm up to characters named Bristle and Grub; here's hoping things smooth out in future entries."
--Kirkus Reviews
Brigitte Luciani received a masters degree in literature and worked in journalism, editing, and photo research before moving to France, where she began writing books for kids and adults.