Jane, the Fox and Me: A Gorgeous Graphic Novel about the
Travails of Youth Inspired by Charlotte BrntebyMaria PopovaA tender
illustrated story about acceptance and belonging.Reading is escape,
and the opposite of escape; its a way to make contact with
reality,Nora Ephron wrote.If I cant stand the world I just curl up
with a book, and its like a little spaceship that takes me away
from everything,Susan Sontag told an interviewer, articulating an
experience at once so common and so deeply personal to all of us
who have ever taken refuge from the world in the pages of a book
and the words of a beloved author. Its precisely this experience
that comes vibrantly alive inJane, the Fox, and Me(public library)
a stunningly illustrated graphic novel about a young girl named
Hlne, who, cruelly teased by the mean girls clique at school, finds
refuge in Charlotte BrntesJane Eyre. In Jane, she sees both a
kindred spirit and aspirational substance of character, one
straddling the boundary between vulnerability and strength with
remarkable grace just the quality of heart and mind she needs as
she confronts the common and heartbreaking trials of teenage girls
tormented by bullying, by concerns over their emerging womanly
shape, and by the soul-shattering feeling of longing for acceptance
yet receiving none.
Written byFanny Brittand illustrated byIsabelle Arsenault who
also gave us the magnificentVirginia Wolf, one of thebest childrens
books of 2012 this masterpiece of storytelling is as emotionally
honest and psychologically insightful as it is graphically
stunning. What makes the visual narrative especially enchanting is
that Hlnes black-and-white world of daily sorrow springs to life in
full color whenever she escapes with Brnte.
When Hlne reluctantly goes on a class trip, she finds herself
humiliated in front of everyone. As she resigns herself to the
outcasts tent, her fictional friend no longer provides sufficient
consolation and assurance that shes worthy of friendship.
Just then, a small red fox appears before the tent a tender
creature whose gaze gives Hlne a momentary glimpse of that
soul-to-soul connection she so desires.
But it only lasts a moment one of the mean girls scares the fox
away, claiming it is rabid and leaving Hlne to believe that there
must be something diseased and defective about anyone who seeks to
connect with her.
But as the class returns to school, a new girl joins the outcast
group, unconcerned with the circles social standing. Graldine is
simply content to be surrounded by people she likes who like her
back, people with whom she shares that simple yet profound
being-to-being connection that Hlne had found in the foxs eyes.
And, just like that, Hlne comes to see that the only way to
un-believe all the hurtful things others say about her is to simply
stop worrying about it all and to believe that the deep sense of
acceptance and inner peace she found in Jane Eyre and the fox
springs from her own soul.
Jane, the Fox, and Meis an absolute treasure that blends the
realities of childrens capacity to be cruel, the possibilities of
transcending our own psychological traps, and literatures power to
nourish, comfort, and transform.