The Fox and the Star | Review

Written and designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, who, before her debut book, was a respected book cover designer for Penguin Books.

Published by the Penguin imprint, Particular Books. The book tells a heart-warming story of a beautiful, orange Fox living in the depths of a dazzling, rich forest.

The only friend he knows is the big star in the star that lights up the forest when it’s dark.

Suddenly the fox finds himself alone at night with no guiding light.

The illustrations on every page are fascinatingly intricate with patterns of foliage, tasselled leaves, thorny branches and an array of different animals. Some of our favourite pages are:

The page that shows how dense and dark the forest is to the small fox – detailed leaves and delightful neutral colours.

A few pages later when the fox goes out of his burrow to find his star, he sleeps in an empty clearing – the detail of the fox's hair is exquisite, surrounded by leaves and black and blue ground all on a 2 page spread.
Two pages later is the lit up version – with the fox waking up.

Finally one of the last pages, the fox surrounded by a gorgeous starry sky, his eyes closed taking in all the beauty!

We loved the small details of the book that are so easy to over-look. The slightly off-white, thick pages. The sharp, clean font; not overly large, and finally the fake-snake skin cover scattered with colourful leaves and the decorated fox!

Yes, the book is stunning visually… but it also has a wonderful story!

Perfect to read to your younger children, it’s also great as a coffee table book or even as a lovely addition to the bookshelf for decoratation. 

We have heard that the hardback book is also beautiful, but for traveling, the paperback is ideal!

Thank you to penguin for sending us a review copy, we loved it! 5/5 stars (pun intended).