Tackling Hard Questions: Death

Fox: A Circle of Life Story
Written by Isabel Thomas & Illustrated by Daniel Egnéus
Age Level: 5-8 Years
Published November 30, 2021

I’m not gonna sugarcoat it for you.

Written by an Oxford scholar, science writer, and STEM advocate, Fox: A Circle of Life Story answers the question “What happens when an animal dies?”

A mother Fox cares for her three cubs, tirelessly hunting and scavenging for food, scanning the environment for danger, and teaching them skills to survive in the wild. After hunting close to the roadside one evening, Fox gets caught in the headlights while ushering her cubs to safety on the other side. Her death is handled briefly, honestly, and peacefully; the cubs sniff, hesitate, and move on. This midway point in the story marks the transition where we shift from focusing on what Fox took from nature in order to live and start learning how her body will now enable other living things to thrive.

“Life is everywhere.
Death is not just an end, but a beginning.”

The second half of the book and the concluding backmatter are a phenomenal lesson in the process of decomposition. By showing how Fox’s body organically returns to nature, we are made aware of the essential role it plays in ecosystems by passing fundamental particles back up the food chain. I love that this book doesn’t underestimate children’s intellectual or emotional ability to comprehend a complex subject like the life cycle. Thomas’s sensitive handling of death followed by her almost celebratory discussion of what comes next is masterful and educationally beneficial.