The Spirited Review

Fox Song by Joseph Bruchac, ill. by Paul Morin

Perhaps now if she kept her eyes closed, she might be able to find her way back into the dream...

We have all had those moments when dream time holds something either lost or impossible, and for which we struggle to remain asleep. Jamie knows that when she wakes it will be to a world that no longer has her grandmother alive, and so she stays on the edge of her dreams, remembering the last six years with Grama. They were years full of being outdoors -- sitting in the sun and eating wild berries off the bush, giving to and taking from the birch tree to make a basket, following tracks in the snow and drinking syrup from the maples in the morning. Grama had pointed out the tracks of her best friend, fox, to Jamie, and told her to watch for a fox someday when Grama was not there. When Jamie finally wakes from her dreaming and ventures outside to Grama's tree, the fox is waiting.

It can be frightening for a child (or an adult) to meet with death and loss; Fox Song shows how loss is also transformation, and reassures us that love does go on, though not necessarily in ways expected or understood. Jamie's Grama had immersed her in the earth; when she thinks of her grandmother, it is the richness of nature that she remembers. Her Grama has given her a trunk to always lean on, a sun to warm her heart, and a foxy friend to watch for.

A child who knows the earth is never truly alone.

Fox Song is the sort of book that should grace every library, it is a story that enriches faith and hope, that gives children something to rely upon. Even when they have not met with death, children encounter so many messengers that say that the earth is not alive, that hope is lost, that there is no point in investing in either. We may think that children are immune to these messengers, but children too can be struck down by the loneliness that comes from a lack of cosmology. Fox Song not only mirrors back the beauties and hopes of our natural life, but it encourages a reverence in all things. After all, if every fox you meet may be your grandmother, then surely you ought to greet her? Hey, kwan nu deh. We greet you.

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