The Tomten and the Fox

I give this book to someone every year. I love that the fox is not a "bad guy" but a creature that also has to eat. The Tomten redirects him from the hen house but understands he's hungry too and feeds him porridge. As relatively recent converts from lifelong carnivores, I love that it demonstrates all creatures deserve to live and be cared for, without hurting each other, as it was in the Garden of Eden, where even all of the animals were vegetarian...check it out in Genesis. What a revelation to me! Animals were not killed by humans until later, even after the sin and they wore skins, they were provided b y God, Adam and Eve didn't have to hurt another creature. This is a sweet beautful book any child will love...it of course doesn't make the Genesis comparison, just love for the fox while protecting the chickens.Re the difficulty level, as a certified reading specialist I don't like to rate quality picture books based on readability, rather by appropriate content. Picture books are meant to be read to children not read BY them. There are plenty of books with controlled vocabulary and phonics for reading practice. Read alouds are for bonding and enjoyment. I give this to teacher friends and friends with children or grandchildren at K-2 grade.That said, when I taught sixth grade I ALWAYS ready to my students. One chapter of a chapter books but ALWAYS an additional picture book to discuss the theme. I highly recommend Leo Lionni books, that have very primary level themes "It's Mine," to more sophisticated ones like Frederick that is an updated version of Aesops grasshopper and the ant (In this one the mouse that wouldn't work wrote poetry and was honored for his work that entertained them during the winter months). The art work in his books is wonderful cut and tear and paste. John Muth is wonderful for discussion too as are so many.

As she had previously enjoyed other books in the series I bought this for her. It was a good relatively short bedtime story which she liked very much.

A beautiful story with beautiful illustrations for cold winter evenings. We love it.

This book will always speak to you and you will always want to look and listen.There's the quietness of people asleep and a farm in the night and freezing white snow on the ground.There's a hungry fox and flustered hens and quiet slow cows and a little Tomte watching over animals and humans alike.The vigilant Tomte is gentle with the fox. The fox doesn't know where to look, caught in the act.But the Tomte knows what it's like to be hungry.There's a bowl of porridge for the fox, and a promise of more on other hungry nights.Peace returns.----------------------------------------------------------------------Here's a comment about the small Puffin edition on sale here. I returned it.I have other hardback copies, old and new. I know that the colours in this edition are washed out and give no idea of the original illustrations.Also, I love paperbacks. Many are perfect. However, size does count. It's possible to reduce the most beautiful book to mean dimensions. This particular Puffin edition is so very small and so flimsy that the power of the pictures is lost.Something went very wrong both at the planning stage and at the printing stage, that's obvious.Please buy a full size edition with decent reproductions of the illustrations.Look for a used copy or borrow it from the library if your budget is limited.

The Tomten is watching over the farm at night when a hungry fox creeps towards the henhouse. It a cute, short and sweet story that will delight younger kids and introduce them to a traditional Swedish mythical character, the tomten, who is the cousin of the "Nisse" in Norway.