Book Review: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

by Charlie Mackesy (741.5 Mac)

 

This short, quiet book, almost a graphic novel, came out in 2019. Each page is an ink drawing or a watercolor of the titular characters with some sort of a philosophical observation they make to each other about kindness, or friendship, or life.

 

‘”Do you have any other advice?” asked the boy.

“Don’t measure how valuable you are by the way you are treated,” said the horse.’

 

Think of Pooh and Piglet walking through the forest and the statements they make to each other about friendship, or the Peanuts characters leaning against the wall as they chat about the world.

 

The author initially uploaded some of the pages to his Instagram account where they caught the eye of an editor who nearly bullied Mackesy into collecting his drawings into this book. These pages are of the type you will photocopy and put on your refrigerator. I highly recommend this sweet, affirming, sometimes poignant little book. A very quick read at only 128 pages.

 

[ official The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse and Charlie Makesy web site ]

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!