When nine-year-old David leaves behind a happy home at a London orphanage for life with his new foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hedger, he isn't sure that he will enjoy living in the country, or ever feel at home at Great Wood Farm. Adjusting to life in rural Sussex, coping with being the new boy at a small village school, which he is surprised to discover is co-ed, David faces many challenges. Quick to notice that all the other children have pets, he asks Mr. Hedger for a dog, only to be told that having an animal is a great responsibility, and that he must wait. Then one day, on his way through the Great Wood, he stumbles across an abandoned fox cub and, encouraged by a passing man who strikes up a conversation, takes him home to raise him as a tame companion. After an initial period of keeping Foxy a secret, David is discovered, and he and his new vulpine companion are given their chance: if Foxy behaves - and stays away from the chickens, from which the Hedgers derive most of their income - then he can stay. Soon accepted at home and in the village, Foxy becomes an established part of David's life, and of life in the village of Woodmere... until the day the fox hunt comes through, and the tame fox becomes their prey. Will David loses his new friend, the being he has come to love above all others...?

Originally published in 1959, and then reprinted in this paperback edition in 1971, Foxy is a moving tale of a boy and his beloved fox companion. Immediately involving, it manages to convey the depth of David's feelings - riding on the train toward his new life with the Hedgers, praying to St. Francis for a dog, watching Foxy flee before the hounds - without ever veering into sentimentality. There is a lot to ponder in the story, which explores the relationship between humans and animals, and the ethical issues involved in hunting, while also obliquely examining the role of religion in a young person's life. The author takes a clear stand against sport hunting in the book, as evidenced by David's discussion of the issue, first with the stranger in the Wood, who describes fox hunting as "a cruel business," and then with Mr. Hedger, who considers it a holdover from 'primitive' times, before humans developed an affinity for animals, and were able to reason properly. While I find the latter argument rather unconvincing as an explanation for the persistence of sport hunting - I would think that ancient peoples had a greater affinity for animals than their modern counterparts, perhaps because they needed to hunt them more often - I was in sympathy with the feelings so evidently influencing it. Perhaps the most powerful condemnation of the practice of fox hunting comes at the end of the book, as David - and through him, the reader - must watch a beloved friend being hunted and (ostensibly) killed. Witnessing the many motorists who follow the hunt, he muses: "It seemed impossible that so many grown-up people should be intent on seeing a little animal hounded to death," going on to question what Foxy (or, by extension, any small creature) had done to deserve such a cruel fate. When David sees the fox killed, the narrator tells us that it is a sight he will remember all his life, and his question - "Why did they seek to kill and destroy when there was really no need - why did it ever have to happen?" - is one that will stick with the reader.

A powerful exploration of the connections, both positive and negative, between humanity and the creatures of the wild, Foxy also offers an interesting depiction of English Catholics in mid-twentieth-century Britain. I can't think of very many British children's books which feature British Catholic characters (rather than foreign ones), although there is the Merrick family, in Antonia Forest's series of novels about the Marlows, published from 1948 through 1982. Howsoever that may be, I thought that here too, Montgomery offered a sensitive exploration of larger issues, as David learns the story of St. Francis from Father Crispin, and then applies it to his own situation. There is clearly a spiritual component to David's story, evident not just in the way that his adoption of Foxy mimics the tale of St. Francis and the Wolf, but also in the episode in which he encounters the hungry stranger in the wood. There are many hints that this tall man in the grey overcoat is meant to be the escaped convict known to be loose in the area, but then he is also later connected to St. Francis himself, who appears to David in a (possible?) vision. Outsiders - the orphaned David, the abandoned Foxy, the escaped convict - are linked together in this story, and then connected to a revered saint, giving the reader much to ponder.

Despite its strengths, Foxy was not an entirely unproblematic book for me. As mentioned, I didn't always agree with some of the ethical reasoning put forward by the characters. I was also unconvinced that taking Foxy and taming him was the correct course of action, and was struck by the easy acceptance of this decision, within the narrative, given that other issues (such as hunting) were so passionately discussed. The idea that being tame is better for an animal than being wild is too easily accepted. That said, this was still an immensely entertaining and poignant read, one I would recommend to anyone with an interest in foxes in children's fiction, the depiction of English Catholics, or just engaging orphan-finds-a-home tales. ( )