Smugglers’ Fox
Susanna Bailey
Farshore


It took just a few minutes for Susanna Bailey’s wonderful word weaving to engulf me in a cocoon, unwilling to emerge until this story, with Keith Robinson’s splendid cover illustration, reached its conclusion.


Johan (nearly eleven) considers it is his role to look after his four year old brother Rio, especially after an incident on the beach, following which their Mam disappears and the social workers say she isn’t coming back this time.


It’s not long before Johan learns that the two of them are to be split up and he is to go and live with long-term foster carer, Mimi, in a little house at Robin Hood’s Bay. ‘I need a plan … me and Rio are stitched together like threads in a jumper . If they pull us apart , we’ll both unravel, and we won’t be Rio or Jonah any more. We won’t be anything,’ he tells readers, going on to call himself ‘Bad-Luck Jonah,’ Nevertheless move he has to, but not before making an unbreakable pinkie-promise to Rio that he has a plan.

At Mimi’s Johan spends a lot of his time making a book of illustrated stories for his brother to show he’s not forgotten him and because it’s part of his three part plan. The second part is being co-operative and helpful to Mimi and the third is trying not to worry about the sea. It’s far from easy when Mimi takes him for a walk to buy something tasty for a treat and while they’re out, a fox suddenly appears, a hungry-looking one, which Johan can’t help but feed. So begins the building of a bond between boy and fox.


Then Mimi shows Johan Grandpa Ted’s secret box containing what might be a treasure map: could this help him keep this promise to Rio? But then things get too much for the boy; he runs off and as a result meets Freddie in what he learns is his Dad’s allotment. Freddie is also familiar with the fox and it turns out that Mimi knows Freddie too. The more time Johan spends with his new friend, the more he’s convinced that Freddie is hiding something.and eventually he shares his troubles with Johan.


A few days later, Johan finds himself in a very dangerous situation and as he says, ‘Digging for Rio, For my friend Freddie. Digging for my life.’


Sometimes the way Johan describes his feelings is so poignant I felt raw inside, but this book ends with the boy accepting things he never thought he could because ‘whatever happens, we’re always part of one another. Jonah, Rio, Freddie. And the smugglers’ fox.’ That is because this haunting story comes from the heart, not only Jonah’s but that of Susanna Bailey too, for she was once a fostering and adoption social worker.