Jane, the Fox, and Me
Pubescent Hélène sees herself as fat and beleaguered by her more popular and social classmates, so she turns to Jane Eyre to find a model for setting her prospects both high and anywhere other than her immediate circumstances. Britt’s well-constructed narrative is achieved sensitively through Arsenault’s impressionistic artwork, in which we see that Hélène is a pretty-ordinary-looking little 11-year-old in spite of her self-image. While her everyday life—which has become further burdened by an all-class camping trip—appears in a gray palette, when Hélène daydreams about Jane’s life, pastel washes and a vivid red appear. During the camping trip, Hélène comes across a red fox in the woods and begins to make some human friends. After a post–camping trip weigh-in, where she sees she’s perfectly normal, Hélène’s everyday world also takes on color. An elegant and accessible approach to an important topic, for readers of Erin Dionne’s Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies (2009) and other novels about girls learning to cope with their own expectations of themselves. Grades 5-9. --Francisca Goldsmith