Journey Home
If you read only one book
this month, this season, let it be Pax.
The middle-grade novel,
written by Sara Pennypacker and illustrated by Jon Klassen, will appeal to
readers of all ages—assuming they have a heart. The story feels both mythic and
realistic, a cautionary tale about how to overcome old patterns that trap us
and to discover the real way home.
Peter, a 12-year-old boy, and
his pet red fox, Pax, are separated when Peter’s father chooses to go to war;
he forces Peter to release Pax into the wild and then to move 300 miles away to
live with his grandfather. Almost immediately, Peter realizes that he has made a
terrible mistake and determines to return for Pax, fearing that the
domesticated fox will not survive alone in the wild.
Meanwhile, Pax, confused by
the abandonment of his human, struggles to make sense of his new freedom and
remains vigilant for the scent of Peter.
Peter’s plan to find and
recover Pax is naïve, but along the way, he discovers an unlikely ally who shows
him how to become both strong and vulnerable. The eccentric war veteran, Viola,
carries her own scars and distrust, but she and Peter come to depend on each
other, forging a new family of sorts.
Hundreds of miles away, Pax
finds a new family, too: a vixen named Bristle, her brother, Runt, and an older
red wolf, Gray. Because Pax had been adopted as a kit and grown up eating
kibble and peanut butter, he has no idea how to hunt and feed himself in the
wild—nor any idea of how to read behavioral signs of his kin.
At its heart, the novel is a
story of a hero’s journey—in this case, two journeys converging. Short
alternating chapters tell the tale from Peter’s point of view and from Pax’s.
We come to cheer Peter as he grows in skill and compassion, and we are
completely won over by Pax’s “voice,” which is completely unsentimental and
based on an accurate depiction of red fox behavior. Our heroes face and
overcome obstacles, as all heroes must, including encounters with an advancing
group of soldiers, who are laying mines all over the countryside. The
underlying threat of war—an unnamed country, an unnamed time—lends a dark note
to this book, but doesn’t obscure its narrative pull.
Pennypacker infuses her story
with astonishingly beautiful prose. Take this description of Pax thrilling to
the joy of running free after a lifetime of captivity:
His body was light, the fat burned off from days of
scarce food. He ran as foxes are meant to run—compact body arrowing through the
air at a swiftness that rippled his fur. The new joy of speed, the urgency of
coming night, the hope of reunion with his boy—these things transformed him
into something that shot like liquid fire between he trees. Something gravity
couldn’t touch. Pax could have run forever.
