ABSTRACT
Kate Kuonen reads to her eighth graders every day even though most of them are accomplished readers on their own. When she read the fi nal page of Fox (Wild, 2001) and put the book down, Makayla indignantly exclaimed, “Th at just can’t be the ending!” She held out her hand to take the book from Kate and check for herself. Jasmin reached for the book at the same time. “I SO want to draw the fox’s eyes,” she said longingly as she fl ipped through the pages to fi nd the illustration she wanted to emulate. Why were these eighth graders so drawn to what looks on the surface like a simple picture book? Jasmin was intrigued by how illustrator Ron Brooks drew the stylized animal characters and wanted to try out some of his techniques in her own art. For Makayla, the story of betrayal and lost friendship was painfully unresolved and she wanted to fi gure out why the characters acted as they did. She said that the story reminded her of a time when she had been “stabbed in the back” by someone she considered a true friend and wondered if there was any hope for salvaging the previously strong friendship between Bird and Dog. While diff erent interests motivated the two girls, what they had in common was that both of them wanted to spend more time with the book.
