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 The Roald Dahl Reading Road Trip continues with Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl! 
 *chucks apple cider at everyone* 
 All that apple cider was a courtesy of Mr. Bean, btw. He's the guy who raises turkies on his farm and is obsessed with apple cider. 
 If you don't know what Fantastic Mr. Fox is about, this short little novel follows our main character, Mr. Fox, as he saves his family from starvation by creating a plan around Farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, who all would love to have the Fox family's tails on their walls. 
 I really hope you read this book chat to the end, because I believe that Mr. Fox is not true fantastic fox in this story -- someone else is. And who knows? Maybe you'll agree with me! 
 Let's get started with this book chat! 
 Now that I'm getting back into reading Roald Dahl, I realize that there is so much alliteration -- which I totally approve of because I LOVE alliteration. 
 Here are some examples of alliteration in the character names: 
 -Fantastic Mr. Fox 
 -Mr. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean 
 (Btw, this book chat will have some MILD spoilers, but I seriously wouldn't stress about it... I mean, the plot is pretty predictable. I predicted it -- and that says a lot, because I epic-ly fail at predicting things in stories. Except for that one time I predicted what the big reveal was in Daughter of Smoke & Bone a full SEVEN PAGES before hand. *throws confetti*) 
 I need to get this off of my mind -- can we please talk about how purely disgusting the farmers' meals are? Okay, so we have Farmer Boggis, the chicken farmer, who "ate three boiled chickens smothered with dumplings every day for breakfast, lunch and supper" (2). Smothered with dumplings... what in the world does that even look like? 
 I just looked up a bunch of pictures, and maybe Roald Dahl's definition of a dumpling is different than what I had in mind? Because I had an image of chicken with traditional, flour-wrapped dumplings (LOL what if the dumplings were chicken dumplings???) smashed -- or smothered, I suppose -- on the chicken. 
 Yup.. I still have no idea what that looks like. 
 I found this website that attempted to recreate Farmer Boggis's fav meal, but the thing is, they titled their recipe as "Boiled Chickens with Dumplings" -- um, it's supposed to be smothered -- and their picture of the meal looks like soup. No smothered dumplings still. 
 That pretty much confirms that the majority of people do not know how boiled chickens smothered with dumplings look like. 
 The most disgusting fav meal of the three farmers would have to be Farmer Bunce's meal, who "mashed.... livers into a disgusting paste and then stuffed the paste into [his] doughnuts" (3). 
 ... 
 Um. 
 How did Roald Dahl even think of that combination!?!? 
 If you read my previous book chat about The Twits by Roald Dahl, then maybe you'll understand when I say this: it seems that all of the villains/antagonists in Roald Dahl's stories are all disgusting and ugly people. This is common in children's books -- you have Mr. and Mrs. Twit, who are described as the ugliest people in the world, and then you have Farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, who are each described in their own unappealing way. They can't even smile right -- when Bean smiled, Dahl describes it as "a sickly smile. When he smiled you saw his scarlet gums.... [and] more gums than teeth" (30). Poor chap. 
 I'm curious to see if this is the case for all the antagonists in Roald Dahl's other books. It's quite easy to immediately say that the antagonist of a children's story is the kind of person where a child will one look at them and promptly burst into tears because oh my, how hideous their faces are! but I wonder if Dahl will take a unique spin and not make his antagonist ugly? I guess I'll see later in this Roald Dahl Reading Road Trip :) 
 Alright, let's talk about the main character of this story -- fantastic Mr. Fox. I actually found Mr. Fox to be a very interesting character -- because wow he was annoying! He's the kinda of character who says, "You stay right where you are, my darling... We can handle this by ourselves" (26) and he's also the kind of person who compliments himself whenever he does something somewhat marvelous: 
 "It's exactly what I was aiming at! I hit it slap in the middle! First time! Isn't that fantastic! And, if I may say so, rather clever!" (40). 
 Like, yay! You did it! But do you really have to bluntly say "I AM SO FANTASTIC AND CLEVER. PEOPLE PLEASE NOTICE MY FANTASTIC-NESS AND CLEVERNESS. THANK YOU." 
 *pauses* 
 "Actually on hindsight you should be thanking me, because I'm the one who's so fantastic and clever. Ha ha!" 
 That's basically what I assume Mr. Fox's inner voice sounds like. 
 But never mind that! Fantastic Mr. Fox is the hero of our story, the main character. We can't talk bad about him! 
 *ahem* 
 But... what if fantastic Mr. Fox isn't the true hero of our story? Yes, he stole food from Farmer Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, and yes, he's the fox who sacrificed his tail, blah blah blah, but I'm thinking of another character who was fairly present in this story, who is just as fantastic as Mr. Fox, who made food for her starving family while Mr. Fox was out stealing more food... 
 Yes, people. I'm talking about Mr. Fox's wife, Mrs. Fox. 
 Once again in this book, we have the case of where the animal families are introduced with this equation: 
 Mr. (Animal) + his family. 
 This happened in The Twits, where the monkey family was introduced as Mugglewump and his family -- his wife nor his children were named, just Mugglewump. In Fantastic Mr. Fox, all the other animal families are introduced in a similar way. 
 "All us diggers. That's me and Mole and Rabbit and all our wives and children. Even Weasel, who can usually sneak out of the tightest spots, is right now hiding down my hole with Mrs. Weasel and six kids" (47). 
 At least Mrs. Weasel was introduced as Mrs. Weasel and not "wife." But I couldn't help but notice that all the female characters in this story were brushed off as the wives of these supposedly fantastic characters who have the camera centered on them as they go off and steal food from the three farmers as revenge. And, yanno. Somehow they're too weak and exhausted to do that too. 
 Where's the second POV that shows Mrs. Fox heaving herself off the ground, despite the fact she can't even move to help Mr. Fox steal food because she said she's too exhausted from the lack of food, with the only motivation being that she knows her family is starving and she must make food? I want chapters showing the hectic rush in the kitchen as Mrs. Fox, Mrs. Weasel, Mrs. Mole, and Mrs. Rabbit cook and set up the table and make sure everyone will have seats when they return. Perhaps Mrs. Fox would stumble and fall down, a plate of food dramatically falling down on the floor. Perhaps Mrs. Fox would her eyes tear up from exhaustion and say, "I can't do this. I'm too tired." 
 But Mrs. Weasel, Mrs. Mole, and Mrs. Rabbit would help Mrs. Fox get up. They will continue to cook and make food and set up the table into a picture of pure deliciousness and perfection because they are the wives of these main characters, and this is what they do best. 
 They persevere and never give up. 
 The're silent but deadly. 
 And, most importantly, they often have the power of anonymity on their side. 
 This is what happens when the camera is not directed towards the nameless female characters in the book. We as readers miss out on the strength of these characters. If the camera was pointed towards the wives in the story, I feel like I -- as well as many other children -- could have learned so much about 1) Being put into a role one might not like to be in, 2) Motivation to do something for the love of others, and 3) Pure perseverance. 
 At the end of this novel, everyone at the dinner table screams, "To Mr. Fox! Long may he live!" (76). 
 "Then Mrs. Fox got shyly to her feet and said, 'I don't want to make a speech. I just want to say one thing, and it is this: MY HUSBAND IS A FANTASTIC FOX" (77). 
 Well, Mrs. Fox. Your husband certainly is fantastic, in his own way. But if I could give one message to one of the characters in this novel, it would be Mrs. Fox, and I would tell her that You, Mrs. Fox, are a fantastic fox yourself. 
 Thank you so much for reading this book chat, and I will cya next time! 
 ~Renell Aysling