Fanny Britt

Thanks to the publisher and Goodreads for a free copy of Hunting Houses!

You know when you pick up a book and you feel like it's been written for you specifically, even though that's entirely impossible? That's how I felt throughout Hunting Houses.

The music aspects (Dido's Lament!). The reference to Owl at Home and his fear of his feet under the blankets. The way the relationship dynamics play out. There are so many things that I love.

This book is fundamentally about relationships -- about show more what happens when you idolize someone, when you keep them in your mind and imagine that you are perfect for each other. What happens when you meet them again after years apart, what impact your expectations and your imagination have on your interactions.

Fanny Britt has a gorgeous style of writing (and Susan Ouriou and Christelle Morelli have done a fantastic job with the translation). This book felt quiet, melancholy, and powerful.

Highly recommended. show less

Jane, the Fox and Me by Fanny Britt with artwork by Isabelle Arsenault is both beautifully told and drawn. The artwork is soft but with sudden colorful and eyecatching items that draw the reader’s attention and play up the power of one’s imagination.

This is the story of Helene, a young girl who escapes being bullied by reading Jane Eyre and pretending utter indifference even though she has taken every insult to heart and feels worthless. When her class is sent to a Nature Camp she finds show more herself in the “Outcast” tent. One evening she has an encounter with a fox who appears to represent hope. The fox disappears but shortly afterwards a new girl arrives at the Outcast tent and suddenly Helene has a friend and all the outcasts find themselves bonding. Having someone to talk to, laugh with and share things brings both light and color into Helene’s life.

Jane, the Fox and Me is wonderful example of what a graphic novel can do. It’s emotional honesty in showing the damage that casual brutality can do to a child is harrowing. When she finds a friend we are reassured that in connecting with another, Helene will be able to move on. Jane, The Fox and Me is a bittersweet story that I think makes it’s point through both it’s words and it’s artwork. show less

It is something many kids go through: invisibility, cruelty, alienation. Helene, our young narrator is having this experience, but she escapes her social banishment into "Jane Eyre". She draws witty, sarcastic, and a bit self-deprecating comparisons between herself and Jane (and a sausage).

This is a story many of us can recognize- there is most likely someone in your class, on your bus, or in your family who has gone through this experience.

The illustration is lovely and enhances the show more solitude of Helene. It has touched my heart and also made me laugh.

"There isn't anything revolutionary about this quiet book... But there doesn't really need to be." -Brodesser Akner show less

Jane, the Fox and Me is a graphic novel by French Canadian author Fanny Britt about a lonely girl who finds refuge in reading Jane Eyre. For Helene, Charlotte Brontë's novel is a way of hiding from the girls in her class who bully her, a way of hiding how alone she is, and a genuine escape into the life of a girl who persevered, looked clearly at things, and triumphed in the end. Her mother, struggling to raise Helene and her two younger brothers, doesn't help Helene's lack of confidence by show more worrying about how much Helene eats. Then a class excursion is announced, and Helene has something new to dread -- a week of camp with her entire class, which everyone else seems to be looking forward to.

The illustrations by Isabelle Arsenault are really lovely, switching between black and white panels in a traditional comic book set-up with larger panels, often full page, in full color and a more painterly style. The illustrations of the parks and woods are especially beautiful. The style in which the characters are drawn remind me of Kate Beaton's (of Hark! A Vagrant fame) style; deceptively simple, but with an uncanny ability to render expression.

Jane, the Fox and Me successfully combines an unhappy and bleak reality with a sense of optimism and hope. The conclusion of the book was realistic, but satisfying and lovely as well. show less