Leila has been living with her aunt and her cousin, seventeen-year-old Mona in her aunt's terraced home in Croydon, England for the past six years. All of them fled out of Damascus, Syria when Leila was just five-years-old.
At the airport in Tromso, Norway, her flight guardian guides Leila through immigration. But Leila's mom isn't there to meet her. Instead it is her mom's friend, Liv Nilsen. They are quickly joined by Liv's daughter Britt, who has just arrived from her school in Bergen. The drive to her mother's apartment is filled with surprises for Leila: the huge mountain and the tunnel under the sea, the Arctic Cathedral. In the apartment Liv shares with Leila's mother, she shows Leila a picture of a fox they have named Miso and have been following. Liv tells Leila that her mother couldn't meet her at the airport because she had a meeting regarding funding for studying this animal.
Later that evening, Leila meets her mother in a restaurant along with Liv and Britt. In the restaurant, Leila's mother reveals that their funding to study the Arctic fox they've been following and recently put a tracking collar on, has been approved. Liv tells the group that the fox, who they've named Miso, was born in a litter on a beach in Svalbard and "has been walking for weeks now, across the sea ice, miles at a time, going north and then west." She has walked almost a thousand miles in one month. Liv states "She's proving animals can adapt through migration even in these most extreme times." The new funding will allow Liv and Amani to track Miso by boat, "...observing her interactions with other animals, seeing whether her coat changes color or her eating habits change." Then in a stunning turn of events, Leila's mother asks if Leila and Britt want to accompany them on the boat! The two girls agree, leading the four to have a remarkable journey of discovery and healing.
Discussion
Later that evening, Leila meets her mother in a restaurant along with Liv and Britt. In the restaurant, Leila's mother reveals that their funding to study the Arctic fox they've been following and recently put a tracking collar on, has been approved. Liv tells the group that the fox, who they've named Miso, was born in a litter on a beach in Svalbard and "has been walking for weeks now, across the sea ice, miles at a time, going north and then west." She has walked almost a thousand miles in one month. Liv states "She's proving animals can adapt through migration even in these most extreme times." The new funding will allow Liv and Amani to track Miso by boat, "...observing her interactions with other animals, seeing whether her coat changes color or her eating habits change." Then in a stunning turn of events, Leila's mother asks if Leila and Britt want to accompany them on the boat! The two girls agree, leading the four to have a remarkable journey of discovery and healing.
Discussion
Leila and the Blue Fox is a story that focuses on the strained relationship between a young girl and her mother, set against the backdrop of research in the high Arctic. The novel incorporates two narratives: that of Leila and her mother, and that of a blue fox, Miso as she journeys across the Arctic ice towards food and finding a mate.
Leila Saleh and her mother Amani's backstory is gradually revealed in the novel: Leila was born in Damascus and they fled the war in Syria when she was only five years old. Her father remained behind in Syria but Leila, her mother, her aunt and her cousin Mona all left. Even though it was seven years ago, Leila remembers the experience. "She remembers it all. The night they left Damascus, bombs lighting the sky like fireworks. Basbousa, terrified in his basket, handed to their neighbor who would not leave. The car into the hills, a truck to the border. The smell of gasoline, the sound of crying, energy bars like sawdust in her throat. Amma chanting....Walking awake, walking half-asleep, being carried, walking always in the dark. More cars, more trucks, a van where Mona had a panic attack...The boat...the boat."
Leila, her mother along with Amma and Mona settled in Croydon in south London. However, Leila's mother, a meteorologist who studies climate change, was unable to find work in England and so she moved to Noway. There she got a job at the Tromso Arctic Institute. The result was that Leila has not seen her mom in six years. This long absence has created feelings of abandonment and intense anger in Leila who wonders why her mother left her. The long absence seems somewhat contrived: was Amani not able to find even a week to return to London to visit her daughter? Leila believes it is because Norway is "as far away from home as she can be. Because everything is different, from the food to the clothes to the weather, because she doesn't want to remember home. And really, though no one says it, because she doesn't want to remember Leila."
Leila's anger and sense of abandonment are intensified when she arrives in Tromso, Norway only to learn that her mother is not at the airport to meet her but instead has chosen to attend a meeting for research funding. When Leila meets her mother at the restaurant she refuses her touch and is angered by her mother's use of her childhood name of "La-La". Six years have passed and no one calles Leila that pet name anymore. To Leila, her mother's "...work was clearly more important to her than being a mom." Later on Leila states that her mother "...was following the fox anywhere ti led, when she hadn't even come to find Leila, even though she knew exactly where she was."
A chance for healing of the rift between mother and daughter happens when Amani and Liv invite their daughters to accompany them on a boat trip as they track the blue fox Miso's journey westward across the ice. The journey towards healing between Amma and Leila is mirrored in Miso's struggle to find a safe place to live.
While on the boat tracking Miso, Leila continues to struggle with her feelings regarding her mother, both hating and loving her. In London, she was able to hide her hurt, keeping busy with life. "But now Leila is here with her, feeling her warmth and hearing her laugh, the absence feels sharper, ragged. Being with her has made all that time without her far more painful."
In close quarters on the boat, Leila finds herself drawn into her mother's research and even understanding her mother's love of the Arctic. She becomes the research team's social media manager, posting information about Miso's journey on Twitter. Becoming involved helps Leila begin to understand her mother. But being on the boat with her mother, experiencing her also bring back memories of a life lost - in Damascus. "With them arrive feelings so big she can't fit them all inside her head: sadness and happiness and the feeling Britt described, of a lost life, a half life it is easier to forget."
In close quarters on the boat, Leila finds herself drawn into her mother's research and even understanding her mother's love of the Arctic. She becomes the research team's social media manager, posting information about Miso's journey on Twitter. Becoming involved helps Leila begin to understand her mother. But being on the boat with her mother, experiencing her also bring back memories of a life lost - in Damascus. "With them arrive feelings so big she can't fit them all inside her head: sadness and happiness and the feeling Britt described, of a lost life, a half life it is easier to forget."
Both Liv's daughter Britt and Leila struggle to cope with mothers who appear to be self-absorbed and disconnected from their daughters. Britt tells Leila that her mother never asks questions about her boarding school and doesn't know about her friends, the books or music she likes. Britt tells Leila her mother "...knows the names of every whale but nothing about me." Leila can relate to Britt's pain because of her own mother's focus on Miso and her research and the fact that she won't tell Amma and Mona about the research and about being on the boat.
When a crisis sees Leila's mother arrested by the Canadian Coast Guard and Leila must tell Amma and Mona what has been happening, "She realizes she loves Mum, but she loves Mona and Amma as well. That they are more than enough." And Leila tells Mona she plans to return to London. Eventually when Amina returns she finally reaches out to Leila explaining why she left England and never returned. Amina reveals that she didn't fit in and didn't feel safe. She decided to stay in Norway because it allowed her to support Leila and her aunt and cousin. "I didn't leave because of you...I left for you. To provide for you, as well as for myself..."
This helps Leila understand what has happened and why, and helps her to come to terms with her feelings of loss and abandonment. But it also doesn't explain why Amani did not return at least for holiday visits therefore seems shallow and incomplete. Nor does Leila question why her mother never returned for at least a holiday visit. However, she does ask her mother to visit "even once a year" which she agrees to do.
The author does tie together Leila's family's "migration" with that of Miso's. Leila's mother tells her, "We had to leave our home, because of war. But what if it was because of water, or lack of it? Or the weather? Patterns are changing. Miso's journey proves that migration is necessary for survival. What Miso did, what we did, was leave home to find something better." The message for young readers is that refugees often do not want to leave their homes, but come because they must, because they are seeking a safer, better life.
Miso's journey across the Arctic ice from Svalbard a group of islands in the Barents Sea is based on the real life journey of a female Arctic fox named Anna who travelled from 3,500 km from Norway's Svalbard archipelgo to Ellesmere Island in Canada. Anna began her journey on March 26, 2018 and arrived arrived in Canada on July 1. The arctic blue fox had been fitted with a radio collar in 2017 and was tracked by researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute. The fox travelled via sea ice and across glaciers. Her journey demonstrated how important sea ice is to animals in the Arctic. Although Miso's narrative is short, there are lovely illustrations by Tom de Fresten.
This novel was well written and will definitely appeal to middle grade readers interested in animals and the High Arctic as well as young refugees seeking a better life.
Book Details:
Leila and the Blue Fox by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
New York: Union Square Kids 2022
243 pp.
New York: Union Square Kids 2022
243 pp.
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