Stone Fox

Coming in at just 80 pages, Stone Fox was started and finished in about half an hour's time tonight. This might be my favorite kids book that I've logged yet here on Back-Blogged. Fuck the Newbery medal; it clearly doesn't mean shit. This kids' story was written in pretty simple language and had plenty of illustrations; I flew through the ten chapters at an unprecedented rate. Perhaps you'll recall my logging of a Newbery winner by the name of Dogsong earlier this year. It was a book about dogsledding, much like this one. But Dogsong was dogshit and Stone Fox was memorable and even touching. That's right; the end of the book throws all kinds of "mature" themes at the reader and makes for a somewhat surprising - and sad - but also beautiful ending. I wouldn't call it perfect - it's biggest flaw is certainly a timeline inconsistency. The cover is downright wrong, as it depicts a young boy in somewhat contemporary clothing (1960s at the earliest, I'm thinking) whereas the book is actually set in a time where a boy and his grandfather may need to sell their whole farm in order to come up with five hundred dollars. Oh well. The cover looks stupid anyway. Don't judge the book by it, as the saying goes. Anyway, this was pleasant not only because it was quick and easy but also because it made for a wonderful read.