In this post, we will see the book Alice by Yulina Drunina.

About the book

The book is a story about how a steppe-fox, a corsak, finds its way to the author’s home from a pet market along with a famished Altsasian her daughter has kept an eye for from a few weeks. They name the fox Alice and the dog Dossy. The story is an emotional roller-coster about life with Alice who is adjusting to home (making it her territory) and humans in it, along with the dog Dossy.

Generally there was much of the monkey in Alice’s character. She just could not resist the urge to wreak havoc-tear up, break, gnaw things. 

Fox in a dog market!

When she is sick she is given prescription with the name Alice Drunina, a vixen.

Taking Alice Drunina, a vixen to a vet.

The bigger problem arises when she has to be fed pills (as an owner of a stubborn dog I know how difficult this can be!). Anyways, she recovers with a series of injections, which her husband volunteers to give. The firm sign of recovery is that she starts to make a mess again.

It took Alice a very short time to become transformed from a miserable little beast shivering from fear and cold at the Bird Market into the idol of our household, worshipped by our entire family.

(If you are a pet owner, you will surely relate to this…)

Alice was not friendly to everyone, Alyona defending herself with a broom.

The family in the summer rents a country home and moves with pets in there. Here Dossy and Alice play nicely with each other.

Alice and Dossy, best friends.

But Dossy becomes infrequent visitor and when he comes back Alice does not welcome him.  Once while going on a walk with Alice they are attacked by a Russian shepherd dog. Alice distracts him so that the author can get away safely.

The author has doubts if she will see Alice again after this, but she is found silently resting on her pen when she arrives back at home.

 “What are you on about? I merely acted as any self-respecting fox would. In our steppes and deserts we don’t abandon our friends in trouble.”

I will stop here, read the rest of the story, will you?

The book was translated from the Russian by Raissa Borbova and the fantastic drawings are by Veniamin Kostitsyn and was published by Raduga in 1986.

The Internet Archive link 1 link 2

(All credits to Guptaji)