One day Fox is lonely, so his mother tells him to make some friends. First of all he starts with an apple on a stick. That doesn't work - and nor do a turnip or a pumpkin. But Squirrel and Rabbit have come to help - maybe making friends isn't so hard after all.
Fox and Crow can agree on two things: their love of cheese and loathing of each other. These cagey animals will do whatever they can to outwit their sworn enemy and claim sole possession of the prized cheese they keep finding. But they are too caught up in their plotting and planning to realize they've picked the wrong house to steal from—since the mother of the house is one fed up Mama Bear who knows exactly how to contend with freeloaders.
From the author of "Still Life with Husband" comes a heartbreaking, honest, deliriously funny new novel about what happens when the perfect balance of a friendship is upended by love.
After receiving her PhD in biology, Raven lived in an isolated cottage in Montana, teaching remotely and leading field classes in Yellowstone National Park. Her only regular visitor was a fox, with whom she developed a friendship and from whom she learned about growth, loss, and belonging.
All of Theodore the elephant's friends give him advice, but none can solve his problem until the opossum announces friends are to help, not just to give advice.
Tucked away in Siberia, there are furry, four-legged creatures with wagging tails and floppy ears that are as docile and friendly as any lapdog. But, despite appearances, these are not dogs—they are foxes. They are the result of the most astonishing experiment in breeding ever undertaken—imagine speeding up thousands of years of evolution into a few decades. In 1959, biologists Dmitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut set out to do just that, by starting with a few dozen silver foxes from fox farms in the USSR and attempting to recreate the evolution of wolves into dogs in real time in order to witness the process of domestication. This is the extraordinary, untold story of this remarkable undertaking. Most accounts of the natural evolution of wolves place it over a span of about 15,000 years, but within a decade, Belyaev and Trut’s fox breeding experiments had resulted in puppy-like foxes with floppy ears, piebald spots, and curly tails. Along with these physical changes came genetic and behavioral changes, as well. The foxes were bred using selection criteria for tameness, and with each generation, they became increasingly interested in human companionship. Trut has been there the whole time, and has been the lead scientist on this work since Belyaev’s death in 1985, and with Lee Dugatkin, biologist and science writer, she tells the story of the adventure, science, politics, and love behind it all. In How to Tame a Fox, Dugatkin and Trut take us inside this path-breaking experiment in the midst of the brutal winters of Siberia to reveal how scientific history is made and continues to be made today. To date, fifty-six generations of foxes have been domesticated, and we continue to learn significant lessons from them about the genetic and behavioral evolution of domesticated animals. How to Tame a Fox offers an incredible tale of scientists at work, while also celebrating the deep attachments that have brought humans and animals together throughout time.
Mr. Fox Meets New Friends was written for children of all ages. It tells the story of three unlikely friends. A search for food ends up with a gift of friendship instead of just a full stomach. It demonstrates how friends can come in any shape, form, or size when you are least expecting it.