Outfoxing the Fox in Doctor De Soto

Reading List
Written By Rebecca Grabill

Doctor De Soto by William Steig, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982.

Anthropomorphism lightens this harrowing tale. Written in a nursery tale style, the story of Dr. De Soto’s escape from the wiley fox feels like a modern Little Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The husband and wife dentistry team, mice, take pity on a fox and repair his tooth, but through ingenuity they “outfox the fox” and thwart his plan to eat them. Bold outline illustrations with watercolor details illustrate the story.

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Rebecca Grabill

Rebecca has been writing since childhood, her first book about a kitten published between homemade cardboard covers in second grade. Although she studied religion and philosophy in university, she continued writing, earning an MFA from Hamline University and publishing multiple picture books (no longer with homemade covers) and a collection of poetry with a variety of New York and independent publishers. She has also published a wide array of fiction, essays, and poetry in magazines and journals and photographs for Getty Images. She balances writing with homeschooling the younger of her six children, launching her young adults, church activities, and overseeing a small flock of chickens in rural West Michigan.

www.rebeccagrabill.com
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