Fox the Tiger by Corey R. Tabor

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Tabor, C. (2018). Fox the tiger. (C. Tabor, Illus.) Balzer and Bray.

Fox the Tiger is a Level 1 book meant for emergent readers. Each sentence is simple in composition consisting of recognizable words and easy noun-verb structure. Sentences like, “Now Turtle has an idea” and “I zip and zoom” include words that a young child will recognize and onomatopoeia which will help make the book more understandable and enjoyable to read. Most pages have one to two lines of text on them, which a few reaching three. In the instances where the amount of lines reaches three, the sentences are even simpler, often only consisting of three words each: “Soon Turtle is Turtle,/Rabbit is Rabbit,/and Fox is Fox.” There are only a few instances where an unfamiliar word is used. Words like, “sneaky” and “prowl” may not be as easily recognized by young readers, but their association with the animal and the illustrations will help the child understand the general definition of the word. They can remember what particular movements a tiger is associated with and connect the word to it.

The repetition is not only present within the sentences but in the story as a whole. For example, we see the sentences, “’I am not [original identity]. I am [new identity], ‘says [new identity]. ‘I [attribute 1] and [attribute 2].’” Theses sentences come up every time an animal makes a change to itself. There are other times where phrases are repeated for each animal. This can help the sentences become easier to read as they see them over and over again.  

The illustrations take up three quarters of each page, so they still have a job to do. The images are simple, mainly to replicate the actions stated, like “Tigers are fast” includes an image of movement lines with the tail being the only part of the tiger in frame to illustrate a quickly moving tiger. There is not much happening in the background of the illustrations as to not distract from the connection between the words and the images. The animals are always the center focus with the only changes being what the animals do to themselves to change what they are, like adding black stripes to the fox, race car designs to the turtle, and a box to the head of the rabbit. 



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