Mr Badger and Mrs Fox Book 2: A Hubbub

Description

Now that Ginger Fox and her mother are living with the Badgers, life just isn't the same. Ginger's new badger brothers like to argue. Her new badger baby sister takes up all of Mrs. Fox's time. And Mr. Badger has a lot of rules about keeping the house tidy. That's not how they used to do things back at the Fox home. Maybe Ginger should live with her father instead. But Mr. Fox travels all the time. And Ginger really likes the new clubhouse she and her brothers built. If only they could keep those mean cats from taking over the clubhouse... Maybe belonging to a big family has some benefits after all!

Brigitte Luciani is the author of many French titles for children. Born in Hanover, Germany, she 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. Around the same time, she discovered graphic novels and began looking for an illustrator to collaborate with on a comic of her own. She teamed up with with Eve Tharlet for the Monsieur Blaireau et Madame Renarde series, which has been translated into English as Mr. Badger and Mrs. Fox. Eve Tharlet is the illustrator of over 150 books for children, including the Mr. Badger and Mrs. Fox series. Although born in Alsace, Ms. Tharlet grew up in Germany, taking courses in printmaking and screen-printing in Berlin before studying illustration in Strasbourg. She has illustrated all kinds of children's products, including miniature books and calendars, games and magazines, schoolbooks and classic fairy tales. She is married and has two sons, and lives in the hilly countryside of Brittany.

In this sequel to The Meeting (Lerner, 2010), in which Mr. Badger and Mrs. Fox met and blended their families, Ginger Fox is having some trouble adjusting to her new life, which includes two badger stepbrothers. In the end she realizes that having a bigger family can only bring more rewards and is happy with her situation. Luciani uses animal characters to bring to life the feelings and frustrations that can develop when children are faced with family changes. The pros and cons that Ginger experiences suggest a realistic view of modern families instead of an idealistic 'Happily ever after.' The watercolor illustrations help set the mood and provide a great deal of depth to each panel. Each strip depicts Ginger's feelings and makes the text come alive. A good choice for the youngest graphic-novel fans. --School Library Journal -- "Journal" (11/1/2010 12:00:00 AM) It's exactly a year after the mixed woodland cohabitation celebrated in The Meeting (2010), and temperamental Ginger Fox has settled in nicely with her three new badger half-sibs--explaining after an exchange of insults ('Fly doody!' 'Skunk fart!') that arguing with friends is OK, but 'you can argue much better with a brother. It's natural!' Ginger's equanimity is upset, however, first when her roving birth father pays a visit that reminds her how much parental attention she got when she was an only child, and then when two cats from town take over the tree-trunk clubhouse she and the badgers have fixed up. Despite an overt socialization agenda ('I have so many parents!' Ginger exclaims at the end), there are some amusing twists here--'Every fight you avoid is one you win, ' homilizes Ginger's strict and orderly badger dad, just before helping the young folk set up a paint trap to drive off the feline interlopers--and Tharlet's delicately detailed panels never look crowded despite plenty of speech balloons. Above-average fare for younger graphic-fiction fans. --Kirkus Reviews -- "Journal" (9/1/2010 12:00:00 AM)