Hurry!

Illustrated and Adapted by Emily Arnold McCully
Adapted from Farewell to the Farivox by Harry Hartwick

This book is a great way to introduce the idea of extinction and endangered species to young animals. Though the story is fiction, it reads like a piece of historical nonfiction, listing names, the date, and specific details that successfully place the story in small-town Iowa in 1916. 10-year-old Tom Elson is walking to the library but stops to watch the town blacksmith work... it is at the blacksmith's shop where he meets a strange man with a crate in his wagon. Inside the crate is a strange animal, the farivox. The book reads, "it's face was wide and flat, like a monkey's face, but it had a long body like a weasel's, with a bush tail like that of a fox. Tom could barely see the animal's small feet, which were clawed like a lion's. Its ears were tufted up and sharp like those of a lynx, and it had a hooked beak like an owl's." And most interesting of all: the farivox can speak! Tom asks the man about the animal, and whether it is for sale. The strange man offers to sell it for $10.00, no less. Tom tells the man he'll be right back - and much to his surprise, the farivox says "Hurry!" The rest of his book is full of excitement and wondering - will he manage to buy the farivox?

This book has a lot of great attributes. The realistic story, accompanied by McCully's wonderful watercolor illustrations, would make this book captivating for a wide variety of readers. There is also a sense of excitement as Tom hurries to gather all of his money so he can buy the farivox. The one thing that I had trouble dealing with is that, although it reads like a fable or a nonfiction story, as far as I've been able to tell it is 100% fiction. An introduction or a post-script telling readers that the farivox is completely made up would be helpful - though it does very nicely relate to the idea of extinction and endangered species (the intro talks of passenger pigeons and the end of the book speaks of other animals that have disappeared).