Foxspell

Foxspell by Gillian Rubinstein won the CBCA Book of the Year for older readers in 1994. It's a seamlessly accomplished mix of social/family drama, and eerie supernatural story, and I'm not surprised that it won. Tod and his mother and sisters have moved to the fringes of Adelaide to live with Tod's grandmother after his English father has returned to the UK for an indeterminate period of time. Tod has learning problems and isn't particularly invested in school; his older sisters are starting to be interested in boys, his mother wants to be a stand up comedian, his brisk grandmother is busy with her hens and her vegie garden. As Tod starts to explore the quarries and bush that surround Grandma's house, he becomes fascinated with the foxes that live there, and one fox in particular offers him a chance of a very different, wild, fierce kind of life.

Rubinstein is clever in her handling of the foxes, acknowledging that they were imported from far away, just like the white inhabitants, and don't belong in this landscape. I've just realised that the foxes in the book only hunt other imported species -- hens, rabbits, cats -- neatly sidestepping the issue of the damage they do to native animals. It's a narrow line to tread, recognising the attraction of these cunning, beautiful animals but also the fact that they should never have been brought here.

The book ends on a breathtaking climax, leaving the resolution to the reader's imagination. I think my copy might have belonged to a teacher who could have been reading it aloud to two separate classes -- there are pencil notes in the margins marking (I guess) where each class is up to. It would make a wonderful read-aloud, appealing to both those who like realism and those who love fantasy. For a thirty year old novel (gulp, I feel old!), Foxspell holds up incredibly well.