Best known for her "uncompromising integrity," according to Horn Book's Alice Bach, American writer Paula Fox has crafted distinguished careers in both children's books and adult fiction. Among the fo...
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Paula Fox is one of the most highly-regarded writers currently working in the United States. Her books for children and young adults are regularly cited for their intelligence, originality and social ...
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Paula Fox has earned a deserved reputation as one of America's most outstanding writers for children. Critics and reviewers have praised her capacity to capture the intense emotions and perceptions of...
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In the following review, Loprete offers a negative assessment of Poor George.
George Mecklin, the hero (or anti-hero, if you prefer) of this slim and over-priced first novel [Poor George], is a teache...
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In the following review, Tyler praises Fox's realistic handling of teenage problems in A Place Apart.
I know a teen-age girl who seems to spend most of her library time opening books, reading t...
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In the following essay, Fox reflects on the ability of books to fuel the imagination, especially of children.
Literature is the province of imagination, and stories, in whatever guise, are meditations...
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In the following essay, Bosmajian discusses the "historical nightmares" of slavery, the Holocaust, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as depicted in children's books, including F...
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In the following essay, Kuznets examines the use of the pastoral fantasy in children's literature—particularly Fox's How Many Miles to Babylon?—as a rite of passage for you...
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In the following review, Birmelin praises Fox's ability in A Servant's Tale to render the perspective of social powerlessness but finds her choice of narrative style too opaque.
Nadine G...
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In the following review, Tyler calls One-Eyed Cat a "book of real value" because of its honest portrayal of the parent-child dynamic.
In Paula Fox's 20-odd years of writing for ch...
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In the following review, Giddings asserts that while A Servant's Tale begins with a well-developed sense of purpose and character, the novel loses focus when Fox moves her characters to an urba...
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In the following review, Simon finds in A Servant's Tale a deftly handled examination of the individual power and purpose of the marginalized under-classes.
Servants know their masters' ...
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In the following review, Pinckney finds A Servant's Tale to be an examination of the subversion of expected values and actions by an outsider to the dominant culture.
The freakishness of innoce...
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In the following essay, Moss includes How Many Miles to Babylon? in a discussion of the effectiveness of self-referential qualities in children's fiction.
"It's because she wants...
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In the following review, Goodwin praises the uncanny realism in How Many Miles to Babylon? but expresses reservations about the book's appropriateness for young readers.
Paula Fox has demonstra...
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In the following review, Sheriff praises Fox's handling of her characters' ambiguous feelings for each other in The Moonlight Man.
[In The Moonlight Man], twelve years after her parents&...
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In the following review, Hayes applauds Fox's break with conventional teen-novel themes in The Moonlight Man, noting the complexity of emotion and mild didacticism of the novel.
Catherine...
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In the following review, the anonymous critic finds The Little Swineherd and Other Tales "luminous" and comic but also appropriately sober.
To open a children's book by Paula Fox ...
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In the following review, Manuel writes that Lily and the Lost Boy is "a coming-of-age story that will be remembered both for its emotional impact and for the sensory impressions that linger lon...
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In the following review, Blubaugh admires Fox's portrayal of village life and of complicated emotional themes in Lily and the Lost Boy.
[In Lily and the Lost Boy], Lily, 12, and her 14 year old...
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In the following review, Fader praises Fox's deft handling of serious social issues in Monkey Island.
[In Monkey Island], eleven-year-old Clay Garrity awakens in the welfare hotel where he and ...
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In the following review, Smith assesses Monkey Island as an honest portrayal of homelessness, particularly the rarely dealt with issue of homelessness as it affects members of the middle class.
One au...
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In the following review, Rockman finds Amzat and His Brothers: Three Italian Tales Remembered by Floriano Vecchi too realistic and disturbing for children.
Fox retells three Italian folk-tales that we...
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In the following review, the anonymous critic admires the traditional fairy tale tone and themes of Amzat and His Brothers: Three Italian Tales Remembered by Floriano Vecchi.
Explaining in her preface...
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In the following review, the critic admires Fox's spare but evocative prose in Western Wind.
[In Western Wind], eleven-year-old Elizabeth Benedict believes the reason she's being sent to...
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In the following review, the anonymous critic praises The Stone-Faced Boy but recommends it for mature readers.
… Gus, the hero of The Stone-Faced Boy, is something of a lone wolf, although he ...
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In the following review, Jaffee finds Western Wind slightly melodramatic but admires the book's probing of human relationships without offering simplistic solutions.
[In Western Wind], to her d...
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In the following essay, Fox explores the ability of language and stories, at their best, to concretize the ephemeral and ambiguous nature of universal experience and what Fox considers the unfortunate...
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In the following review, Sutton finds The Eagle Kite too ambiguous in its handling of the subject matter.
When Liam's mother Katherine tells him that his father Philip contracted AIDS from a bl...
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In the following review, Morrow praises The Eagle Kite for its honest portrayal of both deeply personal and socially charged contemporary family issues.
[In The Eagle Kite], Liam, a high school freshm...
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In the following review, Vasilakis asserts that, although the themes in The Eagle Kite may be difficult for teenagers to absorb, the book is ultimately worth the effort.
Liam Cormac was ten years old ...
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In the following review, the anonymous critic finds The Eagle Kite a "haunting exploration of guilt."
Although The Eagle Kite is probably the shortest and easiest of the Honor Books to r...
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In the following review, Prescott finds The Western Coast stylistically interesting but its plot and purpose unclear.
Other fiction writers will appreciate the formidable technical hurdles that Paula ...
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In the following review, Riley compares Fox to contemporary writers such as Joan Didion and Grace Paley but asserts that Fox is ultimately worthy of praise for her own literary achievements, notably b...
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In the following review, Prescott praises the artistry of Fox's novels but finds them too deliberately difficult to be enjoyed by readers.
Paula Fox is so good a novelist that one wants to go o...
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In the following review, Milton finds The Widow's Children to be a brilliant and accurate portrayal of the suffocating nature of contemporary life.
Years ago, I heard Elizabeth Bowen give a lec...
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In the following essay, Bassoff discusses issues of deformation and paralysis in Desperate Characters and The Widow's Children.
At the end of Plato's Phaedrus, the urban man, Socrates, d...
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In the following essay, Townsend provides an overview of Fox's works for children.
Of the new writers for children who emerged in the United States in the later 1960s, Paula Fox was quickly see...
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Paula Fox
Paula Fox
