Fox the Tiger, by Corey R. Tabor

  Tabor, C. R. (2019). Fox the Tiger. Scholastic Inc.

    Fox the Tiger, by Corey R. Tabor, is a simplistic book that fits neatly into Level One. The font appears to be 20 point, with a rough average of five words per line and a maximum of eight words per sentence. While some words that appear in the book, such as “Tiger”, “Turtle”, “Rabbit” and “Sneaky” fall outside the realm of sight words or one syllable words, no word that appears in the book is longer than eight letters, with the word “Squirrel” appearing on page 27. While some of these words may be challenging to early readers, they provide the opportunity for children to feel a sense of pride at having successfully read such a complicated book. Finally, the page with the fewest lines of text has one line, while the page with the most lines has three lines of text. Also, there are a handful of pages where the story truly relies on the pictures to move the story forward, such as when Fox and Rabbit wait for Turtle, or when Fox decides to paint himself to look like a tiger.  

    The illustrations are naive in style, and are done in pencil, watercolor, and crayon, and assembled digitally according to the information on the title page verso. The colored pencil appears to be unblended, instead opting for a colored-in appearance. 

    The story is simplistic and sends messages of being true to oneself and loving who you are. Fox makes an effort to look like something he’s not, a Tiger, in the book, but is fully returned to his true self by the end of the book and learns an important lesson about being himself. There is also a mild and appropriately childish sense of humor in the book, making it a fun read for those just beginning to truly pick up reading.