A year after Peter and his pet fox, Pax, separated, Pax has taken to his wilder life and started a family, while Peter struggles to figure out what "family" even means. After losing Pax and others to the terrible war, he's determined to live a life of solitude, free from attachment. Peter joins the Water Warriors, a group working to repair the war's ecological damage, and heads for the place he used to call home. When that same ecological contamination sickens Pax's daughter, the fox realizes he must find the one human he can trust to heal his pup--and maybe that boy can find a way to heal himself in the process. It's easy to fall back into Pax and Peter's engrossing world, the story again told through alternating fox and human viewpoints, smoothly woven into a compelling whole. 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.

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) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

It has been a year since the dramatic and emotional events of Pax (rev. 3/16). Peter, now thirteen and estranged from his grandfather, is living with the kindly hermit Vola. Pax, the fox Peter abandoned, has his own family, with mate Bristle giving birth to a litter of kits. The war from the previous book appears to be over, having claimed the life of Peter's father and many others. Now people are attempting to rebuild, with a group of volunteers called the Water Warriors helping to decontaminate the local water supply. Peter, feeling restless, alienated, and in denial ("at thirteen, life could never hurt him again"), leaves Vola to join the junior Water Warriors, intending never to return. At the same time, Pax sets out to find his family a new, safer home. Chapters alternate between Pax's and Peter's perspectives. The boy's restrained thoughts and spare dialogue mask his feelings of grief, despair, and a crushing sense of guilt about Pax, while the fox's own primary concerns are about survival, with occasional memories and specific scents recalling happier times. That the two characters will reunite is to be hoped for (and expected), as they are both drawn back to the place Peter had called home. Subsequent events, lightly foreshadowed, result in a satisfying yet bittersweet conclusion. Klassen's interspersed textured black-and-white art adds layers of complexity. This sensitively imagined story effectively explores issues of human-animal connection, emotional vulnerability, the aftermath of conflict, and found family. Elissa Gershowitz September/October 2021 p.102(c) Copyright 2021. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.