Review by the resident 10yo. I think she did not like the topic of the book. We found it in the children's section of the library. May be more appropriate for middle school or high school. Jane, the Fox, and Me is a book about a young girl named Helene who is teased that she weighs more then she does. She writes in her journal and the book is placed around what she writes in her journal. Helene lives in Canada and is teased by her former friends. Helene reads Jane Eyre constantly throughout the book. In school her whole class is sent to nature camp where kids divide themselves into different groups: the girls, the guys, the nerds, the outcasts ( the group that Helene is in ), the snobs, and the misfits. In the group of outcasts is a girl who just moved and doesn't speak "french" (the book is in english); a girl who only cares about her hair and spends hours combing it, and Helene, the girl who finds the words HELENE WEIGHS 354 POUNDS on the stalls of the bathroom and her locker written by one of her "former friends" as she calls them. At lunch she is teased that she is so fat that her friend poked her butt with a fork and Helene didn't notice. I found this part not needed in the book. There are a lot of references to her being fat when in the end she is actually only 88 pounds. A girl felt sorry for her after that happened and later that night was kicked out of her tent and forced to join the misfits. The girl (Geraldine) befriended Helene. I found the topic of Helene being fat was not needed. When I started the book I thought maybe her father passed away and kids were teasing her about that. As I read on, I found out she was being teased about her weight. I found this a not very good topic for a children's book. The fox is only in the book for 2 pages. I found having "the fox" as part of the title was not needed. The fox changed nothing! The fox didn't walk up to Helene's former friends and say, "stop teasing Helene. She only weighs 88 pounds" then the girls were so scared they stopped teasing her. No! He walked in and walked out. Wow. This is a beautiful book for ages 10-100. It's Judy Blume meets Jane Eyre in Montreal, but more compact and impressionistic. The hazy drawings make the book feel both more gentle and more sophisticated. The story is very brief, but anyone who has felt like an outsider, and any girl who has felt uncomfortable with her body, will be able to fill in the detail in each beat. Older kids should not skip this one just because it is shelved in the children's section.
What do You think about Jane, Le Renard Et Moi (2012)?
Loved this simple yet heartwarming tale of finding yourself in books and in real life.
—Yax
A bullied girl discovers a world outside her own when she discovers Jane Eyre.
—jmassingill
So beautiful, in the story and in the drawings.
—bernicewang
