Review of “The Fox's Palace” by Tuula Pere

Score: 95/100 (9.5 out of 10)

Time and time again, Tuula Pere wows us with her incredibly deep, complex, and intricate children's books—ones that subvert expectations and break the mold of what a children's book can and can't be. She is that great of an author.

Time and time again, Francis the Fox, one of Pere's most iconic characters, proves why he was named “Best Character” and “Best Villain” in previous contests. He is that compelling and interesting as a character.

Now, is Francis the Fox a good guy? NO. Is he a conventional protagonist? NO.

Francis is a gray character who leans toward the dark side, something that is very rare in a children's book. He is, at best, an antihero and, at worse, a villain. However, that doesn't mean that children's can't learn important lessons from reading books about him.

See, Francis the Fox is an example of how NOT to be—an anti-role-model, in a sense. He is an example of what happens when greed, hubris, pride, and arrogance rule a person's conscience. He is a megalomaniacal, Machiavellian character who wants to show the world how great, grand, and powerful he is.

In a sense, he is what happens when egos and ambitions go uninhibited and grow out of control. We can lose sight of the good things that are already in front of us.

With that said, The Fox's Palace follows Francis as he schemes a new way to achieve greatness and to improve his public perception, including the way that his family in another town perceive his supposed accomplishments. Francis has been caught in a web of lies, telling everyone back home (including his mother from the first book) that he has made it big and now lives a huge, impressive home.

The problem is, the opposite is true. He has failed numerous times, including attempting to run the city in the last book (The Fox's City) and being caught in criminal activities. In the third book, The Fox's Tower, we also saw how ruthless, unscrupulous, self-destructive, and what a failure Francis could be.

To combat his conundrum and chase his unchasable dreams, Francis concocts a plan to get a half-blind badger, Barry the Badger, to sign away his large beach side estate, which he uses as a boat house to sell and rent aquatic equipment. Along the way, Francis behaves and acts suspiciously, measuring everything on the estate to the most minute detail.

It's at that point that we noticed how much more detailed this book was in comparison to the other two. The illustrations by Andrea Alemanno are, once again, outstanding! In fact, they're even better than usual.

Going back to the story... Francis's unscrupulous, underhanded activities become criminal and catch the attentions of Mayor William the Wolf and the police department.

Unlike The Fox's Tower, this book has the benefit of having a much less abrupt and somewhat dissatisfying ending. The Fox's Palace allows Francis to realize the error of his ways and learn from his mistakes, although we found ourselves torn about whether or not Francis really deserves a second or third chance. At what point do you become irredeemably bad?

Francis is not pure evil. He is a lot of us at our worst. We all have dreams, hopes, and ambitions. However, some people (like Francis) let those things get out of hand and let their egos grow out of control. This book, like the rest of the series, does a good job at teaching how self-destructive and self-sabotaging this can be. Rather than getting us closer to our goals, being ruthless, cheating, and lying ends up hurting us in the long run.

Check it out on Amazon!