Outfoxed! + Foxy Books for Kids

We were introduced to this game 4 years ago by a good friend with whom I did a kid-swap every Tuesday. My daughter would come home from their house telling all about ‘the fox game’, it seemed they played it every time she went there. We ended up giving it to Odette for her 4th birthday and it has been played numerous times and the kids still enjoy it, especially when playing it with visiting friends or cousins.

This is a cooperative board game, meaning that there is no winner and no loser. Players are working together as a team to eliminate suspects and decided on a thief before the fox gets to the end. All a child needs to do is roll dice, so even a 3-year-old can get involved in the action. And because either everyone wins or everyone loses there are way fewer tantrums.

We have a few favourite ‘foxy’ books that would pair nicely with this game and I’ll start with the one I paired it with at Christmas for my 5-year-old nephew.

Liarbird, by Philip Bunting

Readers don’t actually get to see the fox character who turns this story around. I loved this book from the first time we read it. It cleverly and amusingly shows children the different forms of lying and warns of potential consequences. We have read it numerous time, but I still get a kick out one line where Liarbird boasts about fighting off 15 foxes: “So I says: who’s fantastic now.”

This is Sadie, by Sara O’Leary and Julie Morstad

An adorable, whimsical picture book about a girl with a big imagination. Again, foxes are not so much a character, rather a prop in Sadie’s world. A celebration of childhood dreams, this book is for wild and sweet creative children and the people who love them.

Little Fox and the Wild Imagination, by Jorma Taccone and Dan Santat

I stand by my initial review, this picture book is ‘a visual smash hit’ – full of action, emotion, and imagination. Little fox’s mind is prone to wander and dream up much more exciting scenarios than the daily mundane. This is a reminder to parents of childhood’s most valuable possession: possibility.

Kim Kane and Jon Davis

This series was recommended to me by Megan Daley for my then almost 7-year-old who was capable of reading but not engaging very well with any particular genre or series. Since then this series has been a staple in our house. My girls have read most of them, both the series for emerging readers and the longer series for established readers.

Ginger Green is an anthropomorphic fox, she has two sisters, goes to school, and loves to have friends over for a playdate. The series can be read out of order, as each book is a stand-alone story, almost like an episode, where Ginger learns about different types of friends and situations. It was great for reading development, and also for social skills.

Pax, by Sara Pennypacker, illustrations by Jon Klassen

Pax is a fox who is raised by a boy, only to be unwittingly released into the wild. Sara did a fantastic job of helping readers get inside the head of the fox. I really felt like Pax thought differently to the way a human would. Jude and I both recently enjoyed the sequel, Pax: The Journey Home, which was authentic to the original.

While this chapter book is probably for children a bit older than the game Outfoxed! is, but I couldn’t let an opportunity pass up to recommend this book. My strongest reader read this at the start of grade 3 (8 yrs old) and loved it, and so did I. So while your 5-8-year-olds might be too young to read this themselves, it is definitely ideal for a family read-aloud.