The Midnight Fox

My childhood was very traumatic. I read The Midnight Fox when I was 10 years old. It was the first book I read from cover to cover and it helped me through some very rough times in my life because I always remembered the story. Now I am a writer and like Betsy Byars I write in first person too. I will treasure this book for the rest of my life.

Students enjoyed storyline. They really liked main character. They were always on his side!

Good condition

This book is a treasured tale dearly loved by my daughter, who read it several years ago when she was in (perhaps) the 4th grade. It has been one of her favorites ever since. I believe it captured her attention because at the time we were visited often by a family of foxes who lived in the wooded area behind our home.

I read this as a child and again recently as a father. Betsy Byars does an incredible job of capturing the confused, angry feelings of a young boy left on a farm for the summer by his parents. The main character may resemble today's kids even more than those of my youth - imagine asking a kid today to leave his TV, VCR and videogames for a whole summer! The twist comes when the young boy sees a black fox and gets caught up in this fox's life. The boy grows up by learning to care for something other than himself and in so doing affects everyone.

It works for my daughter. She has to get a copy for school and we bought this. Comes in good shape and has a good story written within the cover.

Book itself: Run-of-the-mill children's chapter book. Not bad, but definitely not Newbery quality, either.Shipping service: Good, classic Amazon service.

This is one of my favorite books from childhood. Now, reading it with my 7 year old son, I love it even more! It's a chapter book boys and girls can relate to and love.

My 8 yo loved this book, couldn’t put it down. Fantasy story, lots to talk about very well written.

This book was just what we expected. My daughter absolutely loved this book and has read again and again!

Livre passionnant, belle histoire, bien écrit. A partir de 9 ans. Very good book from 9 years old. Nice story.

Have used it several times with my classes of Year 4s and 5s. They love hearing the story and we get a lot out of it in terms of writing and discussion about the themes of hunting, being away from home, descriptive language, etc. It's a good read too!

This was a pleasant enough book with some good elements of humour and some thought-provoking moments too. As a teacher, I have used this as part of my class 5's literacy work but unfortunately I found that the children did not engage with the story as well as I did. The story ambles along at a gentle pace and some of the events are rather padded out. I loved the personality and humour of Tom's BFF - Petie Burkis and I also liked Tom's tendency to get side-tracked and talk about irrelevancies such as how he'd like to invent a new colour one day - unfortunately, my class did not appreciate either the humour or the irrelevancies and found it rather tedious. The fox does not actually make an appearance until chapter 5 and even then it is a very uneventful entrance which was a little deflating for the listener. The story describes Tom's journey through his initial reluctance to stay on a farm, to his complete absorption with the life of a black fox and her cub. It did offer some excellent opportunities for drama, character analysis and debate but in hindsight I can see that, from a child's perspective, the book lacks excitement. It is a gentle story of a boy's gradual connection with nature but whilst I would probably recommend it from an adult's point of view, I suspect it is one of those books a child might read only a chapter or two of before putting down and never returning to.