Pax, Journey Home

by Sara Pennypacker, Jon Klassen (Illustrator)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Pax, Journey Home is a heartwarming, emotional, yet hopeful read about a boy, a fox, and their journey back to each other a year after they went their separate ways. This long-awaited sequel to Pax is just as powerful as the first volume, and the message of love and healing will stay with readers for years to come.

From award-winning author Sara Pennypacker comes the long-awaited sequel to Pax; this is a gorgeously crafted, utterly compelling novel about chosen families and the healing power of love. A New York Times bestseller!

It’s been a year since Peter and his pet fox, Pax, have seen each other. Once inseparable, they now lead very different lives.

Pax and his mate, Bristle, have welcomed a litter of kits they must protect in a dangerous world. Meanwhile Peter—newly orphaned after the war, racked with guilt and loneliness—leaves his adopted home with Vola to join the Water Warriors, a group of people determined to heal the land from the scars of the war.

When one of Pax's kits falls desperately ill, he turns to the one human he knows he can trust. And no matter how hard Peter tries to harden his broken heart, love keeps finding a way in. Now both boy and fox find themselves on journeys toward home, healing—and each other, once again.

As he did for Pax, Jon Klassen, New York Times bestseller, Caldecott medalist, and two-time Caldecott Honoree, has created stunning jacket and interior illustrations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062930361
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	01/31/2023
Series:	Pax
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	25,044
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Sara Pennypacker is the author of the New York Times bestselling Pax and Pax, Journey Home; the award-winning Clementine series and its spinoff series, Waylon; and the acclaimed novels Summer of the Gypsy Moths and Here in the Real World. She divides her time between Cape Cod, MA, and Florida. You can visit her online at sarapennypacker.com.

Jon Klassen grew up in Niagara Falls, Canada, and now lives in Los Angeles, California. He is the New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of several books, including I Want My Hat Back and This Is Not My Hat, for which he won the Caldecott Medal. Two of his picture books have been named Caldecott Honor books: Sam and Dave Dig a Hole and Extra Yarn (winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award), both by Mac Barnett. You can visit him online at www.burstofbeaden.com.

Editorial Reviews

Satisfying yet bittersweet conclusion. Klassen’s interspersed scene-setting black-and-white art adds textured layers of complexity. This sensitively imagined story effectively explores issues of human-animal connection, emotional vulnerability, the aftermath of conflict, and found family.” — The Horn Book (starred review)

“This is a deftly nuanced look at the fragility and strength of the human heart. An impressive sequel." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“The book’s message is most simply put by Pax when he tells his kit that “after loving, you are afraid,” but it is still worth it. It’s a hard heart that will keep the tears away for this one, so have plenty of tissues nearby.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

“The stakes feel higher this time, the pain deeper, making for a worthy sequel and a heartbreaking and beautifully life-affirming exploration of the concepts of home, family, and the love that makes it all worthwhile.” — Booklist

“Pennypacker brilliantly walks this tightrope of evoking the power and pain of love. The end result is a story about healing and forgiveness: healing from war, from poisons in the environment, from pain and loss, from the ways people disappoint those they love.” — New York Journal of Books

From the Publisher

Satisfying yet bittersweet conclusion. Klassen’s interspersed scene-setting black-and-white art adds textured layers of complexity. This sensitively imagined story effectively explores issues of human-animal connection, emotional vulnerability, the aftermath of conflict, and found family.

The Horn Book (starred review)

The stakes feel higher this time, the pain deeper, making for a worthy sequel and a heartbreaking and beautifully life-affirming exploration of the concepts of home, family, and the love that makes it all worthwhile.

Booklist

The book’s message is most simply put by Pax when he tells his kit that “after loving, you are afraid,” but it is still worth it. It’s a hard heart that will keep the tears away for this one, so have plenty of tissues nearby.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Pennypacker brilliantly walks this tightrope of evoking the power and pain of love. The end result is a story about healing and forgiveness: healing from war, from poisons in the environment, from pain and loss, from the ways people disappoint those they love.

New York Journal of Books

The stakes feel higher this time, the pain deeper, making for a worthy sequel and a heartbreaking and beautifully life-affirming exploration of the concepts of home, family, and the love that makes it all worthwhile.

Booklist

The book’s message is most simply put by Pax when he tells his kit that “after loving, you are afraid,” but it is still worth it. It’s a hard heart that will keep the tears away for this one, so have plenty of tissues nearby.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

The book’s message is most simply put by Pax when he tells his kit that “after loving, you are afraid,” but it is still worth it. It’s a hard heart that will keep the tears away for this one, so have plenty of tissues nearby.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

This sequel to the well-known children’s book, PAX, returns listeners to the world of Peter and his pet fox, Pax, who were separated by war. Here narrator Michael Curran-Dorsano transitions seamlessly between timeframes and points of view. A year after Pax and Peter’s separation, Curran-Dorsano recounts Pax’s joyful welcoming of fox cubs into the world. But his tone for Peter, now an orphan, reflects the boy’s sadness and confusion. When Peter joins Water Warriors, a group bent on repairing the war’s ecological damage, Curran-Dorsano reflects his surprise at encountering young people who can love after loss. Eventually, Pax is brought back into the life of his boy, and Peter is impacted by Pax’s trust and love. The story and its narration make for a poignant sequel. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2021 - AudioFile

This sequel to the well-known children’s book, PAX, returns listeners to the world of Peter and his pet fox, Pax, who were separated by war. Here narrator Michael Curran-Dorsano transitions seamlessly between timeframes and points of view. A year after Pax and Peter’s separation, Curran-Dorsano recounts Pax’s joyful welcoming of fox cubs into the world. But his tone for Peter, now an orphan, reflects the boy’s sadness and confusion. When Peter joins Water Warriors, a group bent on repairing the war’s ecological damage, Curran-Dorsano reflects his surprise at encountering young people who can love after loss. Eventually, Pax is brought back into the life of his boy, and Peter is impacted by Pax’s trust and love. The story and its narration make for a poignant sequel. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2021 - AudioFile

★ 2021-06-29
Boy and fox follow separate paths in postwar rebuilding.

A year after Peter finds refuge with former soldier Vola, he prepares to leave to return to his childhood home. He plans to join the Junior Water Warriors, young people repurposing the machines and structures of war to reclaim reservoirs and rivers poisoned in the conflict, and then to set out on his own to live apart from others. At 13, Peter is competent and self-contained. Vola marvels at the construction of the floor of the cabin he’s built on her land, but the losses he’s sustained have left a mark. He imposes a penance on himself, reimagining the story of rescuing the orphaned kit Pax as one in which he follows his father’s counsel to kill the animal before he could form a connection. He thinks of his heart as having a stone inside it. Pax, meanwhile, has fathered three kits who claim his attention and devotion. Alternating chapters from the fox’s point of view demonstrate Pax’s care for his family—his mate, Bristle; her brother; and the three kits. Pax becomes especially attached to his daughter, who accompanies him on a journey that intersects with Peter’s and allows Peter to not only redeem his past, but imagine a future. This is a deftly nuanced look at the fragility and strength of the human heart. All the human characters read as White. Illustrations not seen.

An impressive sequel. (Fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews