Fantastic Mr. Fox

This fall I assigned the kids to read Fantastic Mr. Fox.  I hadn’t read it yet, and I assumed it was in similar length to the other books the kids had read by Roald Dahl.  I was wrong.  We were driving in the car, and had been for all of 30 minutes when the first kid said, “Mom, I finished reading Fantastic Mr. Fox.”  I didn’t believe him.  A few minutes later the second kid piped up with, “I finished it too.”

Well, I opened up my Nook, and I looked.  Fantastic Mr. Fox is maybe 60 pages, with lots of pictures.  It was totally believable they’d finished it in less than an hour.

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Fantastic Mr. Fox

Mr. Fox is an amazing thief.  He loves to steal from the three farmers in the area, but the farmers are quite tired of all his shenanigans.  They set a trap for Mr. Fox, and in the process also trap his family, and friends.  Will Mr. Fox be able to save his family and friends? Find out when you read Fantastic Mr. Fox.

 

Fantastic Mr. Fox snacks

I’m going to start off by saying our entire family was thrown off by this movie*.  It’s like they couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a kids’ movie or an adult movie.  It added in this weird thing where the characters were saying, “I want to cuss word this project.”  But they said ‘cuss word.’  It was just very very strange.  It also randomly changed the plot for no discernable reason, but at the same time tried to follow the plot.

It confused us greatly.

But, here are our super awesome snacks.

• donuts- these were fruit loops* (totally not recommending you buy that cereal, but I was just amused they have added marshmallows to your already super sugary cereal), at one point in the book it talks about apple cider donuts- I wanted to get real donuts, but didn’t go shopping at the right time of day.
• carrots, apples, and popcorn- were carrots, apples, and popcorn, again specific items mentioned in the book
• bullets- whoppers* (my kids are always glad to have the excuse of eating these, also total confession I like buying them in those containers even thought it costs a little more because then I can use them for crafts)
• chicken water- my daughter’s theory was the water the chickens were drinking from would be very dirty, so it’s a chocolate cookie with some blue frosting on it that also has some brown coloring mixed in.  It looked really gross
• chicken feathers- pretzel bits* (this particular type would be very useful for how we use pretzels because then I could just open the small bag for the movie night) broken up and dipped in melted butterscotch chips, they looked vaguely featherish (I found this* while looking for the pretzels, doesn’t it look delicious, also I’m hungry now)
• chicken waddle- licorice cut into bite-sized pieces, though you can buy licorice bites*
• dirt- we had chocolate muffin mix to use and the kids really wanted to do that, otherwise I’d use the dirt we made for Holes
• fox tails- there was a type of cookie I was thinking of, and then I couldn’t find it, so instead we had Milano cookies* (oh and I have a song from Chess* stuck in my head now) with orange frosting piped on it, it did not turn out like I was hoping

 

Fantastic Mr. Fox discussion and projects

Since the kids read Fantastic Mr. Fox while we were driving to Williamsburg this fall, and as I mentioned they finished it significantly faster than I expected, we didn’t do projects to go with the movie.

We did talk about the book.

1. How is Mr. Fox’s character different in the book versus the movie?
2. Based on the movie Mr. Fox, what mistakes did he make?
3. Are the farmers good people?  How do you defend your answer?
4. Was Mr. Fox right in his behavior?
5. How is Mr. Fox similar in behavior to a real fox?  How about the other animals we saw in this book?

More Roald Dahl book and a movie night