Richard Barnum

Raised in the North Woods by his family, Sharp Eyes was a fox with a beautiful silver pelt and keen eyesight. His father warned him that because of his unusual coloring, humans would want to hunt him, and sure enough, our vulpine hero found himself a target while still a young cub. Captured alive, he was eventually sold to a photographer, and brought to a zoo in the city. Ostracized by the other foxes in captivity, he was befriended by Chunky the hippo, and the two were eventually put in the same enclosure. Unhappy to have had his freedom taken away, Sharp Eyes managed to escape, slowly making his way northward toward the wilderness, and meeting up with his family again at the close of the book...

Published in 1918, Sharp Eyes, the Silver Fox: His Many Adventures was the thirteenth entry in Richard Barnum's seventeen-volume Kneetime Animal Stories series, and over the course of the book the vulpine hero meets animals - Slicko the jumping squirrel, Tum Tum the elephant, Chunky the hippo - whose adventures are chronicled in other volumes of the series. This is the only volume of the series I have thus far read, and I sought it out because of my interest in the depiction of foxes in children's literature. For the most part, I didn't find it a particularly strong example of animal fiction, and I don't know, despite my enjoyment of the genre and my interest in vintage children's series, that I will be tracking any other titles down. There is a confidential, rather patronizing tone adopted by the narrator here that I found somewhat off-putting - a way of addressing the young reader directly, to draw comparisons between animal and human life. At one point the narrator informs the reader that animals must hunt for food, because they don't have a store in which to buy it. Apparently they also don't store food, because they have no pantries or ice boxes. Leaving aside the fact that many animal species do store food, and that not all humans in 1918 would have gotten their food mostly from the store, this kind of narratorial style just irritated me. I suspect the author - who appears to have been one of many Stratemeyer Syndicate creations - was trying to create animal stories that were both educational and entertaining, but in the end I found the style overly "cutesy," and rather annoying. I don't know that I'd completely rule out ever reading any of the other sixteen Kneetime Animal Stories, but they're definitely not high on the list of priorities. Recommended chiefly to fellow fox enthusiasts, who have the completist's urge to read everything they can get hold of.… (lisätietoja)