Foxes Unearthed by Lucy Jones :: Book Review
A couple of weeks ago I contacted Elliott & Thompson to see if it would be possible for them to send me a copy of Lucy Jones' Foxes Unearthed for review. Happily they agreed and this beautiful book arrived in the post a few days later.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book which looks at foxes and our relationship with them. Starting off looking at Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox and early representations of foxes in literature and moving on through hunting and hunt saboteurs and urban foxes, this book taught me a lot and I saw foxes through other people's eyes. I have to say that my views on the fox remained unchanged - I love them! - but it was interesting to read about them from other perspectives and to try and see why others have the opposite view to me.
I think the key thing I came away with from the book was that essentially foxes are just being foxes and that humans are really the ones with the problem when it comes to wildlife. We have moved into their territories with our concrete jungles and then we complain about them adapting to a new environment instead of stepping back and admiring the sheer resourcefulness of the species.
"Without the endangered curlew, hedgehog or metallic tansy beetle, our lives would be much poorer and thinner. Without the fox they would be too."
How true.
A beautifully written and engaging book, one that I will return to once I have lent it out to a few people first!
Emma
(Many thanks to the publishers for sending me a copy of the book for review - all opinions are my own)
