Peter Spier and Tasha Tudor must be about my favorite author illustrators. Today it’s a Peter Spier book that I’m featuring: The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night. This book was one of his earlier efforts, published in 1961 well before he won the Caldecott Medal in 1978 for Noah’s Ark. Fox was a Caldecott Honor book, however, early recognition for this talented artist.

We love to sing this book together in our family. The fox is such a villain, and the farmer is such a klutz, and the fox family is so cute, and we just like it. If you don’t know the tune, there is music in the back of the book, or I suppose you could make up your own. The words are all printed on one page in the back of the book, too, so that you could make copies and pass them out for everyone to sing along. However you read it or sing it or look at the pictures together, I think you’ll enjoy the book. The illustrations evoke autumn and farm life and New England. The song itself is folksy and catchy, fun to repeat over and over. The pictures will bear scrutinizing over and over, too, with lots of details to catch as you go through the book a second or third time.

By the way, one of my discerning preschoolers once asked me why the fox “prayed to the moon to give him light.”

“We don’t pray to the moon, Mommy. We pray to God.”

“Right,” I answered. “But foxes don’t know much. Maybe they think the moon gives us light all by itself.”

So, I commend to you foxes who pray to the moon or for the moon to give them light, and I recommend this book and any others written or illlustrated by Peter Spier.

Picture Book Preschool is a preschool/kindergarten curriculum which consists of a list of picture books to read aloud for each week of the year and a character trait, a memory verse, and activities, all tied to the theme for the week. You can purchase a downloadable version (pdf file) of Picture Book Preschool by Sherry Early at Biblioguides.