Lawrence in the Fall
I can argue both for and against reading this story. Positively, the story focuses on working through sad emotions and problem solving as a child. Additionally, the illustrations in the book are great, my little one enjoyed them. The foxes have personality and we’ve found when characters are drawn in this manner it really helps my little one engage with the story.
But the negative in the story was the dad abandons the little fox in the woods during a rainstorm. He runs for safety and runs so fast he leaves his little one behind. I had several problems with this. First, the way it was done, the dad was careless and not paying attention to his child. It was hard to believe any dad would behave that way and it made my little one question why he did that. I imagine it makes a child listening to the story feel unsafe. Second, it was during a rainstorm, which can already be scary for little ones. Third, it was completely unnecessary for the story. There were so many other ways that the author could achieved where the story went from that situation.
Everything else about this story and book is great, including at the end there are illustrations of the many different types of leaves which if the reader decides to focus on it can be educational. However, you can’t skip over the fact the dad abandons his little one, it’s too critical to the story to ignore.
Cautions: The big caution is the one mentioned above. A minor one is the book does mention a spider eating flies, and maybe this is only relevant to especially sensitive little ones, but we have had to be careful with stories that mention eating animals, even insects, with ours because for the longest time it really confused her and made her really upset.
