Mother Fox and Mr. Coyote

Title: Mother Fox and Mr. Coyote

Author: Victor Villasenor

Illustrator: Felipe Ugalde Alcantara

Publisher: Pinata Books

http://www.latinoteca.com/arte-publico-press/pinata-books

Publication Date: 2004

Genre: Folktale

Audience: PreK-Grade 2

Overview: This is a bilingual folktale about a mother fox and her three babies and a hungry coyote who tries to eat her and her three children. The folktale starts off with the the mother teaching her children to hunt for food and the fun adventures they have during the day trying to catch frogs. It became dusk and the foxes were having fun, but before they knew it a coyote appeared and was hungry. The mother fox was smart and tricked the coyote to think that the reflection of the moon in the middle of a pond was cheese and that he should eat the cheese instead of them.

Activity: This book could be used in a unit about folktales from different parts of the world, especially because the folktale was from Mexico. This book is also a great book to use in the classroom because it is a bilingual picture book that will help English Language Learners feel comfortable in the classroom and understand the story. One activity that could be done is after reading this book as a class the teacher could have the students draw pictures and write a story to create this own folktale. Another activity that could be done is having the students rewrite this folktale from the fox's babies point of view and what they would do if the coyote approached them and caught them off-guard.

Reviewer's Name: Jennifer Senkevich