Anyone Else's Parents Make Their Kid Abandon Their Pet In A Forest?
For this blog, I am writing about Sara Pennypacker's Pax, an emotional but relaxing book. It is a book about a boy, Peter and his pet fox, Pax, hence the name of the book. The book starts with a sad scene, Peter’s dad is making him get rid of the fox, letting him go into a forest. Peter is very sad and keeps thinking of all the ways he could’ve saved his situation. That’s when he decides to go look for Pax, leaving home extremely unprepared on a 200-mile trip by foot.
My favorite part about this book is that the narrator switches between Pax and Peter every chapter, showing both of their issues while Peter journeys. It also showed them slowly fall apart. Peter starts out fine but gets very hurt and is helped by someone he thinks is going crazy. Pax on the other hand takes a while to adapt to his surroundings. While both of them are on their way they start to think about different things they like, for example eachother. But as they go along, I can see Peter’s memories and thoughts drift away from Pax, and more towards other things, like school, friends, and mostly his love for baseball. But for Pax, all he really has is the forest he is in and then Peter. Even then he also starts to slightly move on. At first he is waiting for Peter, but when Pax realizes that he needs to survive out in the forest he learns to adapt and starts to fit into this new environment. The narration switching is nice because it showed each of their connection and bond to the other, but also the other side of their life. It makes the flow of the book nicer having space for a chapter about both of their journeys during the time.
Overall, I would give this book about a 7/10. I liked the emotions and different struggles they have, but when reading it I would get bored and not read it for very long because some parts of the story weren’t very interesting. It does seem to be kind of a lower level book. The wording was pretty easy and they used big font and spacing, and the book itself also isn’t very long. If you want, give it a go and let me know how you felt about it.
Gavin McGill
I like books that do the narrator switching, it allows for more character development. This story seems pretty interesting with he use of switching narrators to show them falling apart I will have to check this out.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how both characters' perspectives are showed equally. Also it's sad how they slowly drift apart emotionally, which is logical. Is the fox greatly anthropomorphized in this book?
ReplyDeleteThe part about them falling apart seems really cool. It seems like a sad book, so I might check this out since I love sad animal books.
ReplyDeleteI've read this book before and I think that I actually cried at one point (I don't really remember, I read it a long time ago lol). I really enjoyed it, but I definitely agree that it can kind of be slow at points and some parts are unnecessary for the moving the plot forward. It is a super interesting concept, switching between the boy and the fox too. Thanks for posting !
ReplyDeleteThis story seems really interesting. It sounds like a cool take on friends growing apart. Im really curious how the fox thinks while in his perspective. It is similar to how the boy thinks or can readers identify his animalistic qualities? I enjoy sadder books so ill definitely add this to my TBR. Thanks for the recommendation.
ReplyDeleteI would highly recommend the sequel if you haven't read it already, "Pax, Journey Home." I have only just began reading the first book, since I initially didn't realize it was a sequel. The first book seems very interesting so far, for many of the same reasons as you said. Great post!
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