Pax by Sara Pennypacker is a juvenile fiction book and a nominee for the 2017-2018 Maryland Black-Eyed Susan award.
Pax was taken in a just a baby fox by a human boy and his father. For seven years Pax and Peter were inseparable but the war in encroaching and Peter’s father enlists, forcing Peter to move in with his grandfather, where there is no room for a fox. Forced to separate, Peter leaves his fox deep in the woods where he hopes he will be safe. Almost instantly Peter regrets this decision and so begins a 300 mile trek into a war torn wilderness.
Pax is the story of two journey’s: Peter’s journey, alone to retrieve his friend and fulfill a duty all his own; and Pax’s journey to survive a world he has never known, to do more than survive… to thrive.
Being pregnant, I can’t seem to keep my eyes open at night lately but I really want to get through some of these BES’s, so I went to my trusty audiobook. This will actually be a good one to play in the car for your kids; the story has a good flow and the voices are quite captivating.
As much as many of my librarian friends really like this one, it faded for me a little about midway. A great story but a few too many branches in my opinion. This isn’t just Pax and Peter’s journey, it’s the father’s, Vola’s, Runt’s, etc. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but the middle lagged for me and I was craving some more details about the setting and a bit more background.
I also felt there wasn’t much resolution in the end. Peter and Pax’s journey ends but what about everyone else. Yes, Peter and Pax both grow throughout this book and we see how they’ve grown apart but still maintain their deep forged connection, but I still missed the rest of Peter’s story. There was so much build up about Peter’s family life that I felt a little cheated with what we get in the end.
I did love Pax’s narrative. Very believable that a fox was telling this tale. We get his scents and his worldview and the writing even felt almost animalistic in its telling.
Overall, this was a really good story and one I think the kids will like. It may open the door to conversations about nature, war, family relations and finding oneself and growing up. This is definitely a coming of age novel and reminded me a little (very little) of Call of the Wild.
This one gets 3.5 stars from me.
That’s all for now!
-M-