Mother Fox and Mr. Coyote / Mamá Zorra y Don Coyote

by Victor Villaseñor, Felipe Ugalde Alcántara, translator, Guadalupe Vanessa Turcios

Overview

The home of Mother Fox and her three babies is hidden by the roots of a tree stump in a long valley. In the beautiful fields around their home, Mother Fox cares for her children, who are so tiny they fit in the palm of a human hand. She brings them treats to eat, and she leads them to sit on the rocks in the sun.

But Mother Fox must always be wary because an old coyote shares their valley with them. Though he is lonely, the mean coyote searches for food rather than a friend. “After all, this is the way the world works.”

One day, Mother Fox takes her babies to the pond to search for food. There, while jumping and frolicking with the bullfrogs in the night, Mother Fox rolls on the ground shaking with laughter. In fact, she laughs so hard that she forgets about the hungry coyote. Soon, she finds herself snout to snout with her biggest fear. Knowing that they cannot run or hide from the coyote, Mother Fox uses her cunning mind to escape. With a little help from the moon and a trick of light, she saves her babies.

In this enchanting bilingual picture book, renowned author Victor Villaseñor casts a traditional folk tale about Mother Moon. Paired with bright and inventive illustrations, this story is a celebration of nature in all her beauty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781518504761
Publisher:	Arte Publico Press
Publication date:	11/29/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	27 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

VICTOR VILLASEÑOR is the author of Burro Genius: A Memoir (Rayo, 2004); Macho! (Arte Público Press, 2003), which was chosen by The New York Public Library for its distinguished list of Books for the Teen Age; Walking Stars (Piñata Books, 2003); Thirteen Senses (Harper-Collins, 2001); Rain of Gold (Arte Público Press, 1991); the non-fiction Jury: The People vs. Juan Corona (Little, Brown, and Company, 1977). He is also the writer of screenplays, most notably the award-winning The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

FELIPE UGALDE ALCÁNTARA was born in Mexico City in 1962. He studied Graphic Communication at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He has been an illustrator and designer for fifteen years, mainly producing children’s books, textbooks, and educational games for the prestigious publishing houses in Mexico. He is the recipient of the NOMA Concours Encouragement Prize (Japan, 2002), Design for Museum Publications (Mexico, 1996), and the Antoniorobles Prize (Mexico, 1983).

Editorial Reviews

Gr 2-4-In this retelling of a Mexican folktale, cautious Mother Fox worries about the safety of her three babies, for Don Coyote is about, perennially thin and slavering after tender youngsters. On the night of the children's first hunt, however, she forgets her vigilance, lost in laughter over their comic attempts to catch frogs. Trapped by the coyote, Mother Fox uses all of her wits to convince him that the reflected moon is, in fact, a wheel of cheese sunk in the pond. Buying the story hook, line, and sinker, Don Coyote drinks the pond dry and is then too waterlogged to give chase as the fox family escapes. The illustrations, showing round, primitive animals in a moon-washed landscape, are enhanced by a scratchboard technique and have considerable charm and atmosphere. However, the overly long narrative is a bit plodding both in English and Spanish and may not hold readers' attention. Lois Ehlert's Moon Rope/Un lazo a la luna (Harcourt, 1992) is a better Latin-American variant on this theme. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Villase-or, noted author of adult works Rain of Gold and Thirteen Senses turns his hand to folktales for children with this new title. One night when Mother Fox is teaching her cubs how to hunt among the frogs near the pond, she grows so amused at their futile attempts that she becomes careless. Mr. Coyote traps her and the cubs and makes it clear that he intends to eat them all. Mother's solution not only saves her and her children, but also explains why the moon bears the face of a fox. Ugalde Alcantara's richly colored and stylized illustrations accentuate the size difference between fox and coyote and emphasize Mr. Coyote's long snout. Villase-or's attention to Mother Fox's delight in her children and her open awareness that she too is a carnivore make this not only a worthy addition to earlier coyote stories, but also a pointed reminder of the cycle of life in the wild. (Picture book. 4-6)

Kirkus Reviews