Fantastic Mr Fox

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Fantastic Mr Fox

By: Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake - illustrator

Narrated by: Adrian Lester

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About this listen

Brought to you by Puffin.

This audio edition of Fantastic Mr Fox is narrated by multi-award winning actor Adrian Lester (Hustle, The Day After Tomorrow), and is bursting with fantabulous sound effects.

"On a hill above the valley there was a wood.
In the wood there was a huge tree. Under the tree there was a hole.
In the hole lived Mr Fox and Mrs Fox and their four Small Foxes. . . "

Mr Fox is a very clever fox - every evening he creeps down into the valley and helps himself to food from the nearby farms.

Chickens from Farmer Boggis, ducks and geese from Farmer Bunce, and turkeys from Farmer Bean.

But now the farmers have had enough, and together they hatch a plan to get rid of Mr Fox for good!

But what they don't know is Mr Fox has some help, and a fantastic escape plan of his own...

Action & Adventure

Animals

Animals & Nature

Classics

Fiction

Humorous Fiction

Literature & Fiction

Comedy

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Most relevant

Not long ago, there was an uproar online when it was revealed that new editions of Roald Dahl's children's books were going to be released with certain words or phrases edited out -- such as "ugly", "fat", "mad", "dwarf", and several others that many today consider to be offensive. In addition to that, in the case of this book in particular, rewriting sections to balance out the Gender Equality (eg; "people" instead of "men", "royalty" instead of "kings", not making the female characters appear shy or weak, even keeping identities of side characters ambiguous).

I'm all for providing quality family entertainment without causing offence; but as many had pointed out, those books (and many others) had been written in a different time, and to edit them so extensively seemed quite drastic, hence the mass of complaints that were raised. A case of trying to please everyone and no one.

HOWEVER...at least Penguin / Audible have had the sense to separate the "edited" books (The Roald Dahl Series) from the Originals (The Roald Dahl Classic Collection). The former can be used by those who like the revised editions, whilst the latter (which had been recorded several years before) can be retained for those who prefer them as they are word-for-word. Whether this was in response to the backlash or whether Penguin had had that plan all along, who can say.

But I say it's a satisfying compromise. Listening to the revised versions might seem jarring on first hearing, but overall, these changes don't affect the story's main structure. The beginning, middle and end are just as they are, and Adrian Lester puts on a Fantastic performance of his own as the Storyteller.