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2015 Nominee

Jane, the Fox and Me

Written by Fanny Britt. Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault.
Published in 2013 by Groundwood.

Hélène has been inexplicably ostracized by the girls who were once her friends. Her school life is full of whispers and lies – Hélène weighs 216; she smells like BO. Her loving mother is too tired to be any help. Fortunately, Hélène has one consolation, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Hélène identifies strongly with Jane’s tribulations, and when she is lost in the pages of this wonderful book, she is able to ignore her tormentors. But when Hélène is humiliated on a class trip in front of her entire grade, she needs more than a fictional character to see herself as a person deserving of laughter and friendship.

Leaving the outcasts’ tent one night, Hélène encounters a fox, a beautiful creature with whom she shares a moment of connection. But when Suzanne Lipsky frightens the fox away, insisting that it must be rabid, Hélène’s despair becomes even more pronounced: now she believes that only a diseased and dangerous creature would ever voluntarily approach her. But then a new girl joins the outcasts’ circle, Géraldine, who does not even appear to notice that she is in danger of becoming an outcast herself. And before long Hélène realizes that the less time she spends worrying about what the other girls say is wrong with her, the more able she is to believe that there is nothing wrong at all.

This emotionally honest and visually stunning graphic novel reveals the casual brutality of which children are capable, but also assures readers that redemption can be found through connecting with another, whether the other is a friend, a fictional character or even, amazingly, a fox.

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4 thoughts on “Jane, the Fox and Me

  1. Hillhurst School

    This book, Jane, the Fox and Me, is about a girl named Hélène who is being bullied at school and is a outcast and how she made a new friend. This book is a very good book for readers no matter how old they are. It pulls the reader into the book. I like this book. It is a FANTASTIC book!

  2. nicholas sheran

    I like about this book is because it starts sad then gets happier and my favorite part is when she reads the book there are sausages and its sooooooooo good I would have 1,00000000000 copies of them in my house so good

  3. Hillhurst Elementary

    I am doing a book review on the book Jane the fox & me. this book was wrote by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault. This book is about a girl named Helene who gets bullied by her ex-friends and reads the book Jane Eyre to ignore them. Then they go to a camp and Helene sees a fox and finally finds a best friend.

    I think purpose of the book to tell kids how to solve their bullying by finding a friend has been achieved. If a kid who is bullying someone reads it they will know how the kid that feels and they won’t bully them anymore.

    This book raises a very important issue that is bullying. Bullying makes kids feel awful about themselves and sometimes even makes them commit suicide. Exclusion is also awful because it makes kids feel like they do not belong anywhere and makes them feel lonely.

    Jane the fox & me raises important issues and tells you how to solve them. I suggest this book to anyone who is getting bullied.

  4. Hillhurst school

    Jane the fox and Me Book Review
    By Miranda
    In this story, the main character is Helene; she has no friends and lives her life with insults and laughter upon her, because every time she weighs herself she always getting bigger and fatter I wonder why she has to be treated that way? Just because she’s different that doesn’t mean she should be treated different.
    When she was forced to go to camp (on her first day), Helene was reading a book on the bus called “Jane Eyre” it’s written by “Charlotte Bronte”. The author who wrote “Jane the fox and me” describes that Helene is really interested in this book, I wonder why she likes it, is it because that she (Helene) have a connection between her life and Jane’s life (the character in Helene’s book) or is it that she loves books and loves to be educational. When she was on the bus I bet that she was pretty lonely and no one wanted to sit with her, but other students was forced to sit with her but the closer people were to her the bigger chance to tease her about her size. But Helene just sat on her chair and reading her book (the Jane book) like nothing is happening but she can actually hear everything and I think in her inner feelings she is very hurt by these insults/mean comments.
    When they (Helene’s class) arrived at camp Helene went to her cabin “the outcast tent” she began reading, while she was deep in her book, suddenly a twig snapped and Helene got ready to run when suddenly out of pop out a beautiful kind fox, she was about to have a day not alone but suddenly Susanne Lipsy burst out of the tent and shooed the beautiful, kind, innocent fox away and told Helene that she saved her life and told her what could have happened if she didn’t save “her life” Helene mumbles about how big of a change it was if she had a friend she mumbled all the insults that she couldn’t hide from, her worst fears; Helene weighs 316, Helene weighs 261, Don’t talk to Helene she has no friends now, Helene has rabbis …
    One ordinary day, Helene was reading her book like any normal day when this girl with short black hair popped right into the “outcast tent” she was very nice and didn’t insult her like others did to Helene, she also invited her to pick eat strawberries with her, the talked and talked. It was Helene’s longest conversation in month now. Back at school, just that girl being nice to her changed everything, everyone started to wave at her and she didn’t get mean comments like her use to. Helene no longer felt lonely anymore.
    The thesis of this story is “some people may be different but you must respect her/him the way s/he is”. I agree that no one should be treated that way in our everyday life because we should be treated equally and respected the same way. Also because lots/most of the kids want a world with fairness and no bullies because lots of people are here to make the world a better place and a better future, they are not here to make the future into the past, they’re here to make present into the future. Books shall never be extinct because books are a good use of information and knowledge and they are a good memory of the past and the stories we had in the past, so we might be able to use this information in the future, books can be use in lots of different things in the present but who know what in the future?
    Everyone should read this story because not everyone may have read this story and understood its meaning, like every book should have a meaning because if there’s no meaning of this book, what the purpose of making this book and what is the purpose of reading it? If people didn’t understand the meaning that means that s/he should read it again and get the meaning of this story, if they still haven’t got it that means that s/he doesn’t put lots of effort into the book. Everyone should read this book because the author and the illustrator used lots of meaningful pictures and lots of detailed and meaningful words to describe the pictures, if everyone reads this book, we might be able to make the world a much better place just by a book!


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