My entire family thinks I’m crazy now. Was challenged by one of those ‘name 10 books that have stayed with you’ and could not think of the name of a children’s picture book that we read almost daily when I was growing up.
The book included the rhyme: A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go,
We’ll catch a fox and put him in a box,
And then we’ll let him go!
But I do not think it included the remainder of the rhyme, only that part with the fox in the box. As I recall the cover of the book was green, and about 1/4 to 1/2″ in depth. Maybe 12″ in length, and 10″ in height. Probably published in the 1960s, because it was something I learned to read as a child.
The plot of the book was that Joe wanted to go fox hunting, catch a fox and put him in the box, and then let him go. I believe, he was going to hunt the fox with a bow and arrow, and did shoot the fox in the leg with the arrow. He put the fox in the box, and the fox pleaded with him to remove the arrow and let him go, as Joe promised. But Joe wanted to keep the fox. Ultimately, the fox was let go.
I always thought the book was called Fox in a Box, but cannot find it under that name. It was definitely not a Dr. Seuss book.
Would be awesome if you could find this book.
The bit you remember about the “fox in a box” reminds me of the Ogden Nash poem “The Solitary Huntsman”, about a man hunting foxes, but the end lines are “I’ll catch a fox/And put him in a box?And never let him go.”
The Nash poem could be part of a collection of poems and stories, including the one about Joe and a fox, don’t really know. Hope this helps.
Try under the title “A-Hunting We Will Go”
I don’t know the book; but this song is a popular traditional children’s song. Unlike many traditional songs, it is known where it originates: from the original production of ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ in 1777. It was composed by Thomas Arne. I believe the original was ‘We’ll catch a fox and put him in a box and never let him go’, but in most children’s versions the last line is softened to ‘and then we’ll let him go’. There are other verses in the song referring to other animals; e.g. ‘We’ll catch a fish and put him in a dish’; ‘We’ll catch a giraffe and make him laugh’.
Might this be it? Oh, A-Hunting We Will Go by John Langstaff, Nancy W. Parker.
Found on: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/197466.Oh_A_Hunting_We_Will_Go
All great suggestions, and am aware that there is a book that has the entire poem/song in it. But that’s not the book we read as kids. It only had the fox portion of the verse, and the story about Joe hunting the fox was built around that verse.
Thanks to everyone’s work. I actually found the book title listed under F198 on this website.
It’s Edith Thatcher Hurd’s Fox in a Box, published in 1957.