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karen's Reviews > The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
by
when i first saw this title and cover, i said AWWWWW! and then, over the holiday season, so many people were praising this book in print and in person, i knew i needed to get a copy for myself. OR, to get a copy for greg because - fox - and read it before gifting it to him. because i am a monster.
for me it's a mixed bag. on the one hand, the artwork is gorgeous
on the other hand, this
which just, no. like capital-letter NO with all of my being.
again, i am a monster. this is known.
show me a cute animal, and i melt like an ice cap, but human children inspire nothing outta me but low-level panic, gracelessly suppressed. i'm just...not interested, which makes me feel guilty as a human person and plays its part in my nightly insomniac personal reckoning/shame spiral. also keeping me from sleep is my cynical inability to be charmed by the well-intentioned but facile insights this book offers up to readers. because people are getting genuine comfort from this book and i feel like a dick for rolling my eyes and imagining these words carved on a block of wood and sold for like twenty dollars.
does this book have messages this girl needs to hear? hell yes.
but then this happens
and it's like that olde aesop's fable about the signal and the noise.
i am a monster. my dreams aren't coming true, my ship's not coming in, 'at least i have my health' doesn't apply, i'm growing old and bitter, and platitudes really only work for people with vanilla froyo problems.
if i treat it like a book written in a foreign language, it's great - i can enjoy the pictures, and i can recognize the individual words even though the messages mean nothing to me.
i am a monster. like the mole, i will eat all your cake.
also, i miss calvin and hobbes.
THE END
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by
karen's review
bookshelves: les-animaux, kiddiwinx, books-everyone-loves-but-me, hello-foxen
Jan 01, 2020
bookshelves: les-animaux, kiddiwinx, books-everyone-loves-but-me, hello-foxen
when i first saw this title and cover, i said AWWWWW! and then, over the holiday season, so many people were praising this book in print and in person, i knew i needed to get a copy for myself. OR, to get a copy for greg because - fox - and read it before gifting it to him. because i am a monster.
for me it's a mixed bag. on the one hand, the artwork is gorgeous
on the other hand, this
which just, no. like capital-letter NO with all of my being.
again, i am a monster. this is known.
show me a cute animal, and i melt like an ice cap, but human children inspire nothing outta me but low-level panic, gracelessly suppressed. i'm just...not interested, which makes me feel guilty as a human person and plays its part in my nightly insomniac personal reckoning/shame spiral. also keeping me from sleep is my cynical inability to be charmed by the well-intentioned but facile insights this book offers up to readers. because people are getting genuine comfort from this book and i feel like a dick for rolling my eyes and imagining these words carved on a block of wood and sold for like twenty dollars.
does this book have messages this girl needs to hear? hell yes.
but then this happens
and it's like that olde aesop's fable about the signal and the noise.
i am a monster. my dreams aren't coming true, my ship's not coming in, 'at least i have my health' doesn't apply, i'm growing old and bitter, and platitudes really only work for people with vanilla froyo problems.
if i treat it like a book written in a foreign language, it's great - i can enjoy the pictures, and i can recognize the individual words even though the messages mean nothing to me.
i am a monster. like the mole, i will eat all your cake.
also, i miss calvin and hobbes.
THE END
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Reading Progress
September 26, 2019
– Shelved
Started Reading
December 28, 2019
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-50 of 67 (67 new)
do you want to be thelma or louise as we go over this cliff?
Mmm.That is an excellent question.
Typically, I've always felt more Louise but I sometimes have Thelma days.
Which one are you gonna be?
i'm not picky. i like sunglasses AND kerchiefs. i don't have a driver's license, though, so i'll only be useful for that last stretch of road, where getting pulled over doesn't matter as much.
just remembering that louise hogged both the kerchief AND the sunglasses...
I DO have a driver's license AND a car and I DO like kerchiefs but I DON'T like sunglasses so that makes me the driver who sends us over the cliff not because we're all, "I choose not to go back!" but because I was blinded by sunlight and didn't see that the road turned and BAM, there we go, over the edge.
i will bring the road trip snacks. I hope you like diabeetus!
I like human children, but only real children, the kind who crawl under the table at parties because they're hunting dinosaurs in space with laser guns. Platitude-children I can do without. So I guess put me down as another monster.
RAWR! get in the backseat, baby!
Sounds way too "Little Prince," another book with a FOX that has been praised by the masses which I hated beyond any reasonable rationality (In fact, I spent the majority of said book wanting to punch the prince character, whom I found to be annoying, a complete moron, and a total Bella Swan type in the worst way)Imma hard pass on this one.
we're gonna need a bigger car!
The illustrations look rather good. The saccharine bits do look off-putting, but they make more sense if you look at it from the point of view of the (presumably) intended audience. What other options are there when "our hearts hurt"? Well, two-year olds might try biting and kicking, or maybe telling someone they hate them, or breaking anything within reach, including the things which you will wish later were still unbroken. So, telling you to just remember you have friends and cry it out and it will get better eventually, while it sounds icky sweet, is better than "kick and scream how much you hate people and keep doing it until things improve", which is more or less what naturally occurs to a small child.I just got kicked out of the car, didn't I? : )
Instead of a car... What about a cargo van? Or a bus? Yes! A bus! We can all get together and paint with all our favorite book covers, quotes, and literary things. Then take it for an, um... test drive.
I'm also a Petit Prince detractor so have no intention of reading this one, we're going to need that bus
Granny wrote: "Great view at the bottom of the Grand Canyon! Maybe you''ll get to enjoy it for a split second after your beautiful families flash before your eyes! Good luck with that! PS... lovely book, some humor, beautiful artwork, thought-provoking messages. Should melt a heart that isn't too crusty! I guess for some, it is already too late. Is that cynical?..."i understand about half of those sentences - how many families am i meant to have and why are we all at the bottom of the grand canyon? but the gist is you liked this book, i didn't, and i'm...doomed? i mean, i guess. i'm just not a fan of easy sentimentality, and i'm not gonna be made to feel bad about my own tastes because that's just silly. i'm glad you liked this book. lots of folks did.
Rossdavidh wrote: "The illustrations look rather good. The saccharine bits do look off-putting, but they make more sense if you look at it from the point of view of the (presumably) intended audience. What other opti..."i don't think it is strictly intended for kids, though. it doesn't list as children's, it's not priced for children's - it's a book for aaaaaalllllll.
karen wrote: "Rossdavidh wrote: "The illustrations look rather good. The saccharine bits do look off-putting, but they make more sense if you look at it from the point of view of the (presumably) intended audien..."Well, some of us hold on to a child's level of emotional self-regulation longer than others. : )
Granny wrote: "karen, my apologies, I let my cynicism get out of control... I was referring to the "busload of reviewers", ready to do a "Thelma and Louise" into the Grand Canyon, or whatever canyon they went int..."I do a ctrl-F on "suicide" on this page and the only references I see to it are your comment?
ohhhhh, right, sorry. i forgot about the thread, that all makes sense now. i'm not sure i treat suicide casually - my mom killed herself when i was seventeen so i've also been profoundly affected by it - but here's something weird - i never saw thelma and louise as a suicide movie, even though they do technically kill themselves (or dooooo they - we never do see the aftermath), so for me the whole "over the cliff" motif of it is more about "together til the end" than suicidal ideation. they're for sure not sad at the end of that movie. but you're right, through a less ooh-rah female empowerment lens, theirs is an unspoken, spontaneous suicide pact. i think this book is beautifully drawn and impressive as an object, but some of the sentimentality made me wince. younger readers, and people wired differently than me have found value in its words - it's a runaway bestseller and that's great, but the way my own life experiences have shaped my worldview, some of it reads a little treacly. still, every book their reader &etc.
Rossdavidh wrote: "I do a ctrl-F on "suicide" on this page and the only references I see to it are your comment?"hahah i was typing my overlong comment while you were writing this and now i fear i will break your control f function with that word.
karen wrote: "ohhhhh, right, sorry. i forgot about the thread, that all makes sense now. i'm not sure i treat suicide casually - my mom killed herself when i was seventeen so i've also been profoundly affected b..."We all see things from our own perspective and life experiences. I'm sorry about your mother. That would certainly be devastating. I wish you well.
Thanks! Now I know that I don't want to read the book, bc these 'on-the-wall quotes' make me sick to my stomach and throw books away.
Thank you for helping me see that I’m not the only horrible cynic out there 😊
there are DOZENS of us!
Bought this one for the artwork ... Returned it for the writing
This is the review I was looking for. Thank you!
I don't know about fro-yo problems... I've lost both my parents at 10. Had my brother taken away. Been diagnosed with a heart condition. Had major back surgery. Been without running water for a year. Had my car repossessed. Had my house catch fire. Counted nickels to buy bread. Had the deed to my property double sold, and lost it. And watched my grandparents slowly deteriorate.I like platitudes. I don't know if those are considered fro-yo problems, but I like striving for optimism and being grateful even for the little things like running waters and warm beds and loved ones.
I've not read the book, but I always enjoy reading your reviews. Even the ones that are bitter and sharp. Hope you enjoy your next book more.
I bought the book for my granddaughter and refuse to get on this particular bus. I hated Eat Pray Love with the fiery heat of a thousand suns, and EVEN THOUGH its author wrote a blurb for this book, I read it anyway and loved its simplicity. I am generally not on board with cynicism, though; for instance... I LOVE LOVE ACTUALLY. So grind me and my opinion into the dirt, and drive that bus over the cliff without me. PS: I had to look up "fro yo" too. Sheesh.
that's cool, man - there's all sorts of different buses. i'm not looking to 'grind you or your opinions into the dirt' - i repeatedly stated that i felt like a monster for not getting anything out of this - i'm just one me, yeah? i'm glad you enjoyed this and i'm sorry i made you have to look up a word.
Interesting. I agree with much of your review - but one of the quotes that stood out to me was the one that inspired NO with all your being! Shows we are all different, even if we come to the same conclusions. :)
well at least we can all agree that the animals are cute.
I came here to find this review and I wasn't disappointed. The art is charming...the dog messed up a picture and the picture still made the cut...it's lovely. Here comes the but... (there's always a but(t) ;) )... there's just nothing new under this sun. It's mac and cheese - some is better than others, but it's always just kind of there - consistently consistent. Warm. Squishy. Even comforting, but easy to eat and you'll probably forget about it shortly after. I too am a monster. Please may I ride the bus?
oh, sure! there's always room on the monster bus! but now i want mac and cheese...
The font gave me a migraine. Loved your review!!!
hahaa thank you! the sentimentality gave me one.
Thank you for your review because I feel like less of a monster. Some parts are profound enough but as you are saying, some could be “live, laugh, love” hanging in your house and why did I need to be told that?
those signs exasperate me. like this one - what's with the mixed message, sign???
Maybe the mole can go visit his relatives in better books, maybe Mole in Wind in the Willows. He can bring the cake. (Thanks for the review. I've dithered over this one on the library website based on the pictures but will now give it a pass.)
it's maybe worth it for the pictures, if you're considering it as a library loan - it's not like you'll be wasting any money, and it won't take very long to read. i'm just confused about why this is such a PHENOMENON, although perhaps it's just the state of the world making people crave comfort in the book-equivalent of empty calories and easy sentimentality.
Another point: This book is written in a scrawly, chicken-scratch cursive-y font. Not only does it make the text a challenge for the average person to decipher, but do schools even teach cursive anymore? (Forgive my ignorant question. I have no kids of my own and have no plans to do so in the near or distant or alternate futures)
karen wrote: "those signs exasperate me. like this one - what's with the mixed message, sign???"
Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?
wait, schools don't teach cursive?
karen wrote: "wait, schools don't teach cursive?"I heard somewhere they were going to phase it out. Maybe just a rumor...
who knows what these kids are learning, all ZOOM and snapchat...
Ok. I am just relieved that I'm not the only one giving it a... its okay kinda rating, at least that's what a 3⭐ is to me. I am just happy i found an ebook for this.
Copyright wise- are you allowed to post so many of the author's illustrations? Just wondering.
yeah, i think i'm covered under fair use &etc
I didn't even rate or review this one because it made me roll my eyes so hard. It's way too much. I didn't even appreciate the illustrations.
Dear fellow monster: Scootch over, we need to sit together.