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Pax by Sara Pennypacker
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Pax (original 2016; edition 2016)

by Sara Pennypacker (Author), Jon Klassen (Illustrator)

Series: Pax (1)

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2,4391156,160 (3.99)103
"After being forced to give up his pet fox Pax, a young boy named Peter decides to leave home and get his best friend back"--
Member:sparklecookie
Title:Pax
Authors:Sara Pennypacker (Author)
Other authors:Jon Klassen (Illustrator)
Info:Balzer Bray (2016), 288 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:***1/2
Tags:None

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Pax by Sara Pennypacker (2016)

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» See also 103 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 115 (next | show all)
Jeez, here I go again, not really digging another big release of 2016 by an author I love (see my review of [b:Raymie Nightingale|25937866|Raymie Nightingale|Kate DiCamillo|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1446751148s/25937866.jpg|45835163]). What is up? I don't know. Maybe I'm just not the right reader for such major bummer, sadsadsadness right now.

My biggest issue with this book is that the setting is completely ambiguous and I struggled with it throughout the book. When and where does it take place? In what world is there a little league game taking place a few miles from a war zone?

It's also become a really tired cliche for a sad kid to randomly meet a magical friend who fixes them (and, of course, the kid fixes the friend, too). I could go a good ten years without reading another story where that is a major plot line. Peter and Vola are both characters with a lot of backstory, but I still didn't feel like they had real depth. They both came off as flat portrayals of sadness and guilt personified.

I don't mean to vent about this book, because it did have some good parts (e.g. Pax's POV), but as I sit to write this review I'm just frustrated that both Pennypacker and DiCamillo have disappointed me so far this year. Ladies, I love you, but you're bringing me down. ( )
  LibrarianDest | Jan 3, 2024 |
Peter and his fox Pax are separated when war comes to their community. The rest of the book rotates POVs between the two as they try to find their way back to each other. I loved this one enough that I immediately had to find the sequel. I love the realistic way the author writes from Pax's POV. It's a beautiful story about learning what's important to you and finding your true family.

"Let me tell you, feelings are all dangerous. Love, hope...Ha! Hope! You talk about dangerous, eh? No, you can't avoid any of them." ( )
  bookworm12 | Dec 20, 2023 |
I enjoyed the themes in this book on the inevitable cycle of change and having to constantly reevaluate how those changes add or subtract or compile somehow who you are. I have read where a lot of people feel dissatisfied with the ending, but I rather liked it. It ended the journey which began the book. Another journey will happen, but this was the window for the novel. I think the ending shows how change is a cycle, there's always a journey after the last journey but from each one Peter will find some essential truths at his foundation. ( )
  rianainthestacks | Nov 5, 2023 |
Pax and Peter have been inseparable ever since Peter rescued him as a kit. But one day, the unimaginable happens: Peter's dad enlists in the military and makes him return the fox to the wild.

At his grandfather's house, three hundred miles away from home, Peter knows he isn't where he should be--with Pax. He strikes out on his own despite the encroaching war, spurred by love, loyalty, and grief, to be reunited with his fox.

Meanwhile Pax, steadfastly waiting for his boy, embarks on adventures and discoveries of his own. . . .
  PlumfieldCH | Oct 31, 2023 |
A beautifully wrought novel about the relationship between a boy and a wild fox against a backdrop of war. "Moving and poetic." -Kirkus, starred review
  jessica.mckerrow | Sep 7, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 115 (next | show all)
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Sara Pennypackerprimary authorall editionscalculated
Klassen, JonIllustratorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed

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Pax (1)

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Epigraph
Just because it isn't happening here doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Dedication
To my agent, Steven Malk, who said "Pax" -S.P.
First words
The fox felt the car slow before the boy did, as he felt everything first.
Quotations
Author's note: Fox communication is a complex system of vocalization, gesture, scent, and expression. The "dialogue" in italics in Pax's chapters attempts to translate their eloquent language.
"The Gulf Stream will flow through a straw, provided the straw is aligned to the Gulf Stream and not at crosscurrents." / "What's that supposed to mean?" / "It means align yourself, boy." / "Align myself?"/ "Figure out how things are, and accept it." (p. 98)
"I have more than everything I need." Vola sat. "I have peace here." / "Because it's so quiet?" / "No. Because I am exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing. That is peace." (p. 102)
"Rises from the ashes. I know what a phoenix is." / "Right. But out of its own ashes." "... the new bird rises up out of the old bird's ashes. My mother loved that. She said it meant that no matter how bad things got, we could always make ourselves new again." (p. 116-117)
'Two but not two.' "It's a Buddhist concept. Nonduality. It's about oneness, about how things that seem to be separate are really connected to one another. There are no separations. " Vola picked up his fox again. "This is not just a piece of wood. This is also the clouds that brought the rain that watered the tree, and the birds that nested in it and the squirrels that fed on its nuts. It is also the food my grandparents fed me that made me strong enough to cut the tree, and it's the steel in the axe I used. And it's how you know your fox, which allowed you to carve him yesterday. And it's the story you will tell your children when you give this to them. All these things are separate but also one, inseparable." (p. 186-187)
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Wikipedia in English (1)

"After being forced to give up his pet fox Pax, a young boy named Peter decides to leave home and get his best friend back"--

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Book description
Pax and Peter have been inseparable ever since Peter rescued him as a kit. But one day, the unimaginable happens: Peter's dad enlists in the military and makes him return the fox to the wild.

At his grandfather's house, three hundred miles away from home, Peter knows he isn't where he should be with Pax. He strikes out on his own despite the encroaching war, spurred by love, loyalty, and grief, to be reunited with his fox.

Meanwhile Pax, steadfastly waiting for his boy, embarks on adventures and discoveries of his own....
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