Reviews of Foxtails
The Adventures of Freddie Fox

Dray Publishing Inc. P. O. Box 1108, Owen Sound, Ontario N4K 6K6

Audiobook Title: Foxtails: The Adventures of Freddie Fox

Authors:	Hanrott, Robert
Music:	Horsley, Martha and Hanrott, Robert
Pianist:	Simpson, Andrew
Publisher:	ByD Press
Year Published:	2004
ISBN:	0-9721035-6-2
Running Time:	60:34 mins

The Adventures of Freddie Fox is a delightful audiobook developed by Robert Hanrott and Martha Horsley. The story line (written in verse and narrated by Robert Hanrott) is accented by imaginative and well-timed use of music (music composed by Martha Horsley and Robert Hanrott). The effective layering of verse and music makes the entire presentation work very well. Dramatic effect is achieved by subtle and complimentary changes in the music. Listeners can expect to be both entertained and informed by this audiobook. It contains three fanciful and amusing "Freddie Fox" adventures and informs us on related matters pertaining to fox habitat and habits. There is a broad range of information contained in this audiobook. At time terminology is used that will require adult interpretation. This factor makes The Adventures of Freddie Fox ideal as a family listening event (Adults and Children over 6 years of age).

Robert Hanrott‘s narrative efforts are appropriately timed and convincing in his application of both serious and whimsical speech patterns. Ranked in 2004

Ranking Status

Overall Audiobook Ranking: 4.1 out of 5.0 Stars

Narrative Ranking: 4.1 out of 5.0 Stars

Overall Audiobook Ranking

Your ranking of 4.1 stars is classed as "Very Good" and places your production effort in the top 15% of our "Total Audiobook Rankings." Our total audiobook database consists of 1,024 ranked titles. A comparison of your ranking score within the "Family/Youth" genre places you "At The Top" of this category within our ranking database.

Narrator Ranking

Your ranking of 4.1 stars is classed as "Very Good." Your score of 4.1 stars places you in the "Top 17 %" of our narrator rankings universe. Our ranking database contains 295 narrator rankings across all audiobook genres. Your score of 4.1 stars was achieved through a combination of narration and the added impact of the music. The music was a very effective tool for segment introduction and establishing the appropriate mood.

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Feisty Freddie Fox tries Um-blu Glu-per Cola which promises to "make a man" of him.

5 stars

"Imagine a deep wood," the wonderful tale of the sleek and wannabe-sly, Freddie Fox begins. Freddie (Zip Code, Ten Tree Hill) wants to be a man. His musical theme gives him away -- full of verve and imagination. And not complicated. Only his "date," the lovely Foxglove who "so admires self-sacrifice," saves him (and vice versa.) The fun is in the journey. The dangerously-clueless fox smashes headlong into exciting "calamities" because he got snookered by an ad promising that guzzling Um-blu Glu-per Cola "makes a man of you."

The music and the rich light verse carry the story for listeners -- from age 6 to whenever. The very young may miss the deeper political thrusts against the suburbanizing and corporatizing world threatening to turn the "silent wood" of Freddie and Foxglove into asphalt for SUV's. But, as the tuneful story dances on -- FEAR NOT!! Freddie's delicious and sometimes yuckie (a word missing from the helpful glossary included in the CD because every child knows the meaning of good old "YUCK") adventures will delight them. The revolution-plotting chickens rising up as one, a mega-flock 20,000-beaks, arrayed against the wing-clipping oppressors. Images of mean carnivorous crows, beaks and feathers lying about the pavement, the ultimate triumph of good and of hope -- a moral tale for both young and old. In the spirit of the verse: Freddie and Foxglove are fab. . .

Carmen Brissette Grayson

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"Delightful and imaginative...

The tales of Freddie Fox are delightful and imaginative, and provide amusement for audiences at all levels of sophistication. Hanrott and Horsley‘s skills at versification and rhyming are an astonishment, and their musical underscorings provide just the right commentary to give color and momentum to the storytelling.

Jeffery Chappell, composer/pianist

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I experienced the Foxtails as a unique set of stories which are both entertaining and intriguing. Entertaining, because the story lines, written in verse, are a mixture of fun and pathos which kept me emotionally involved with the central characters of Freddy Fox and his girlfriend. The verse, polished and imaginative in its use of vocabulary, is illustrated by music which is both tuneful and descriptive.

The stories are also intriguing because, as with other classic tales, they can be understood on several levels. On a superficial level, children will enjoy the adventures and difficulties in which Freddie finds himself. I suggest that because of the wide and sometimes sophisticated vocabulary, eight to ten years old would be a more appropriate age than that which is recommended. On a deeper level there is political and philosophical comment which will amuse and stimulate their parents.

As a grandmother with young grandchildren I can highly recommend this original, fanciful and stimulating audio-book.

Jane Dean, psychologist