Starred Review ALA Booklist (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Starred Review A worthy companion to its two acclaimed thematic predecessors, Green (2012) and Blue (2018), Red is the story of a young red fox that lags behind its parent and three siblings, eventually becoming separated from them in the deep, dark forest. After spending a night alone, the little animal crosses a railroad track and finds itself near humans as evidenced by fences, a shed, a wheelbarrow, and a bright blue truck. Different hues of red drive the illustrations; the color appears in both the natural and the man-made world and brings with it associations as varied as anger, courage, danger, joy, and love. Seeger's thickly painted illustrations deftly convey these myriad emotions, while spare yet effective text ly two words per page nveys the dangers that the susceptible kit encounters: "rose red, mud red, rust red, blood red." After a couple of lonely, hungry nights, the fox falls prey to a trap but finds rescue through an empathetic young girl. The color red appears in autumn sunsets and sunrises, late-blooming flowers, ripe apples, and the foliage of the trees while strategically placed die-cuts add interest to the already involving tale of a youngster trying to find its way home.

Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews

This companion to Caldecott Honor book Green (2012) and its sequel, Blue (2018), explores the color red as symbol of our conflicted responses to nature.A fox family travels; one young member falls behind. This fox-"lost red"-sleeps alone, then wanders. A blue pickup, an ominously large box in its bed, stops at a railroad crossing, headlights spotlighting the fox. A red-haired White girl plays in a fenced yard as the fox peers in. As in previous volumes, two-word, occasionally rhyming phrases and small die cuts characterize this work. The die cuts operate less interactively here than in the earlier titles, often simply picking out a shape or bits of color in previous or succeeding spreads. A notable exception is "rust red": die cuts delineate three ominous nails poking from a board. A page turn reimagines those die cuts as seed heads, but text-"blood red"-and the fox's cut paw will evoke readers' empathetic pangs. Gorgeous, autumnal red-golds visually narrate the fox's unwitting incursions into a rural landscape studded with human-made barriers: a chain-link fence bordering a laden apple tree; a looming "brick red" wall; most menacingly, "trick red," a cage trap with red meat as bait inside. The girl, witnessing its entrapment, frees the fox, which relocates its clan. Seeger's note acknowledges the development of Red as a narrative for the girl depicted at the end of Green.Lush illustrations, sensitive interconnections, and subtle visual clues unite all three outstanding volumes. (Picture book. 3-7)

School Library Journal Starred Review (Fri Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2021)

PreS-Gr 2 Seeger masterfully draws readers into the unique, powerful link between emotion and color through her story of a lost red fox meeting human-made barriers on his journey home. She infuses different values of red into immersive, wooded landscapes to tell of the trying, increasingly distressing moments the fox faces on his journey. Textured with visible brushstrokes, Red expresses a myriad of strong emotions, from longing, pain, and rage to a final contrast conveying the warmth of kindness in an example of a young girl's care for the fox's freedom. Two-word phrases unobtrusively accompany most of the fully painted spreads to offer a direct means to name the type of red, or the emotional draw, within each scene, but the reader's eye will remain unhurried, carefully finding and "feeling" each hue. VERDICT Wrapped in the heavy, honest tensions between color and emotion, Seeger emboldens children to connect with the young fox's story and feel the raw consequence of humans' indifferent influence on the environment. Rachel Mulligan, Westampton, NJ

Horn Book (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

In Green (rev. 3/12), author-illustrator Seeger paired a color concept book with an ecological theme, following it some years later with Blue (rev. 9/18), which similarly united a consideration of color with one of emotion. Now she turns to red -- sixteen shades of it, from "dark red" to "just red" -- to tell the story of a lost fox. The painterly acrylic images and strategic die-cuts immerse viewers in the fox's world and trials, from it trailing the pack to becoming lost to enduring hunger, injury, and capture, until its eventual return to its family. Hues range from the "light red" of sunrise to the "blood red" of an injured paw to the "rage red" of being trapped in a cage. The season is autumn, which allows Seeger the full riot of shades of reds, but the story is an anytime one, the fox a stand-in for anyone going through trouble on the way to security. Roger Sutton

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

This companion to Caldecott Honor book Green (2012) and its sequel, Blue (2018), explores the color red as symbol of our conflicted responses to nature.A fox family travels; one young member falls behind. This fox-"lost red"-sleeps alone, then wanders. A blue pickup, an ominously large box in its bed, stops at a railroad crossing, headlights spotlighting the fox. A red-haired White girl plays in a fenced yard as the fox peers in. As in previous volumes, two-word, occasionally rhyming phrases and small die cuts characterize this work. The die cuts operate less interactively here than in the earlier titles, often simply picking out a shape or bits of color in previous or succeeding spreads. A notable exception is "rust red": die cuts delineate three ominous nails poking from a board. A page turn reimagines those die cuts as seed heads, but text-"blood red"-and the fox's cut paw will evoke readers' empathetic pangs. Gorgeous, autumnal red-golds visually narrate the fox's unwitting incursions into a rural landscape studded with human-made barriers: a chain-link fence bordering a laden apple tree; a looming "brick red" wall; most menacingly, "trick red," a cage trap with red meat as bait inside. The girl, witnessing its entrapment, frees the fox, which relocates its clan. Seeger's note acknowledges the development of Red as a narrative for the girl depicted at the end of Green.Lush illustrations, sensitive interconnections, and subtle visual clues unite all three outstanding volumes. (Picture book. 3-7)