There's always action in the Fox family. Revel in the sibling rivalry as oldest brother Peter dodges his homework and doesn't stop eating. Paige, the only girl amongst the siblings, continues her shopaholic, boyfriend-seeking antics. And Jason, the youngest, is geekier than ever, buildiing robots and teaching his pet iguana, Quincy, how to annoy every member of the family. Throw into the mix, sensible yet TV antenna-cutting mother, Andy, and backyard grilling disaster dad, Roger, and you have the perfect recipe for a family that every kid can relate to.
Bill Amend is an American cartoonist, best known for his comic strip FoxTrot. Born as William J. C. Amend III, Amend attended high school in Burlingame, California where he was a cartoonist on his school newspaper. Amend is an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. He attended Amherst College, where he drew comics for the college paper. He majored in physics and graduated in 1984. After a short time in the animation business, Amend decided to pursue a cartooning career and signed on with Universal Press Syndicate. FoxTrot first appeared on April 10, 1988. Amend currently lives in the midwestern United States with his wife and two children, a boy and girl.
Okay, first off, a little background: I grew up on newspaper comics. From as far back as I can remember, I read the funny pages whenever I could get my hands on them. I got my first Garfield Fat Cat Three Pack when I was only about six or seven...and I could read it just fine! True, some of the comics I didn't understand--particularly the political and/or non-humorous ones--but, reading them was one of my favorite things to do, especially on Sundays, when they were all longer and in full color. In elementary school art class, I was reprimanded for doing comic-style art; that is, with sound effects and speech bubbles. (Hey, that's the kind of art I was used to seeing!) So, the funny pages had a big effect on my childhood.
Based on that, you'd probably expect that I would like something like this, and I did...for the most part. Before I got into franchises like Star Wars and superheroes, some of the humor in FoxTrot was lost on me; I knew next to nothing about Luke Skywalker or Peter Parker. Now that I'm older and better versed in entertainment--especially of the sci-fi/fantasy variety--I can appreciate some of the allusions better. Still, as tends to be the case with comic strips at times, the comedy here gets a bit repetitive; some of them have essentially the same joke. However, when it comes to funny page compilations, you can do much worse than this. If you're unfamiliar with the strip, this will serve as a great introduction.
Humorous collection of Foxtrot comic strips that spans the year, including many popular holidays. I love the interaction between the siblings. Our girls love this comic as well and are begging to get more of these books from our local library.
Love reading Foxtrot. Usually I borrow hard copies from the library and this is the only ebook available. Wish there were more ebooks, since it’s so much easier to borrow, finish and return. Somehow it seems to be shorter than other hard copies but still enjoyable. Only part I didn’t really like was the dreams part.
Family chaos is all that happens in the Fox family. With Peter hosting his own football camp and finally getting a permanent position in baseball that he'd rather not have, Paige's fashion antics and struggles at school, and Jason's first crush and hunt for superpowers, this family always has something going on.
The Fox family rules!!!! Well, at least the kids. Aliens, science, food, babes, clothes, food, football, food, girls, school, food..... You will recognize all the pain and joy and siblings. And that's just in ONE book!
Meet the Fox Family. Their quirky antics are similar to a family you may know. Quarreling and competitive siblings, Peter, Paige and Jason, with parents who attempt to participate in their children's lives. Hilarity has been successfully woven into each scene.
One scene demonstrates Jason attempting to be Dr. Doolittle by inviting the little birdies to come along and either rest on his sunbathing sister or leave some droppings behind. The kids are fun characters who are figuring out how to handle school, classmates and pets with classic humor attached will have readers of all ages chuckling and giggling. Another scene incorporates mom with child at the dinner table. Child is too full to take another bite. Mom suspects child is too full for dessert. Nope, not at all, child can eat dessert with one swallow. What parent wouldn't recognize this scenario?
These hilarious family characters are recognizable and will have everyone picking the scenes they've actually experienced. A great family read for all.
Joyce? Dostoyevsky? Updike? Morons. Can I get an Amend? Hell yes. I love Fox Trot, always neck and neck with Calvin and Hobbes as my favorite laugh-out-loud comic strip. Very few comic strips make me do that. The wit is sharp, sarcastic, dry, and often perfectly timed. The disparity in the IQs of the three kids in the family is genius in and of itself. My three year old picked this one out randomly at a used book store without my knowledge and of course I had to buy it for him. It follows a full calendar year of the Fox family kids and their shenanigans. Exhausted and overwhelmed mom. Clueless dad. Athletically inept older brother with a bottomless pit for a stomach and an aversion for academics. Middle child sister with a self-esteem issue and bookend brothers who torture her. Younger Einsteinian brother who is mischievous at school out of boredom and destructive at home out of curiosity. Hilarity ensues.
This assortment of older strips from the Foxtrot series is a good introduction to the title. These strips, selected for kids, are most of the strips from the year 1999. The humor is accessible, and should appeal to kids and up. Jason, the younger boy, is always a wonderful mixture of academic brilliance with a kid's lack of wisdom. Thus, he creates amazing Halloween special effects, but also tries to juggle a dozen eggs, or swing from a spiderweb, with predictable results. His older siblings are more stereotypical for a comic strip, but good foils. The dad is like Homer Simpson with actual brain cells, and the mom is the only reasonable one, other than her penchant for cooking inedible culinary delights. Overall, a good sampling of a fun series.
I had checked it out for Tash, because who doesn't like comics when they're ill? She loved it, and gave it back to me when she'd finished. I remember reading Foxtrot unknown years ago, when I took daily and Sunday papers, but I'd never been a particular fan. And I realize these strips were pulled out as being to interest to kids. But hey, cool, they cover summer vacations, and bench-warming, and exam weeks. Most of all what I enjoyed was the little digs at each other between family members who aren't really hating each other. Broad comedy, but no drama. I especially appreciated the way the strips dealt with having a gifted kid, how really irritating that could be. A little gender stereotyped, perhaps, but there's nothing mean here at all.