Lily to the Rescue: Foxes in a Fix

W. Bruce Cameron's Lily to the Rescue: Foxes in a Fix is a snowy animal adventure for 7 year olds starring a dog who has no idea what a fox actually is.

What happens

Lily tells it, as always, and Maggie Rose is her girl. Mum's a vet who does some work with the zoo, and Dad is a game warden. Book seven of Lily to the Rescue stands on its own just fine.

It opens up in the mountains with Mr Martin, a retired pilot. Maggie Rose is determined he needs a new dog. All Lily has to do is be on her very best behaviour. Instead she breaks one of his model planes, crashes into a window after a squirrel and rolls in something dead. (So that went well.)

Then the phone goes. A truck has smashed through a fence at the zoo, and a litter of young Arctic foxes has run off into a snowstorm. They're white. It's snowing. And they're only babies.

An old hound called Brewster is supposed to help track them. He follows his nose straight to a sofa and has a nap!

The real fun is that your reader knows things Lily doesn't. She keeps hearing the word "foxes" and wondering if it's a game or a snack. Meanwhile she's busy making friends with some little white "almost-dogs" behind a woodpile. Who's going to tell her?

There's one properly gripping scene where Lily watches her new friends sneak somewhere VERY dangerous for their dinner. It's tense for a page or two but nobody gets hurt, and it's the kind of bit that keeps a child turning pages.

It's worth knowing that Mr Martin's dog died before the story begins. It comes up early and gently, and Dad has a kind word about loving our dogs while we've got them. A child who's recently lost a pet might find that part tender. For most readers it just makes Maggie Rose's matchmaking extra sweet.

And Lily's first trip on a plane is a treat. As far as she's concerned it's a very long, very loud car with the outside missing, and she has a LOT to say about it (mostly howling).

What to read next

For another trip into the mountains on one of Dad's game warden jobs, try The Not-So-Stinky Skunk. Maggie Rose finally gets a camping trip with just her dad, and it starts with moving a whole colony of prairie dogs.