The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

A boy meets a mole, who feels very small, but the boy reassures him that he makes a “huge difference” in the world. They sit in a tree, and when the mole asks what the boy wants to be when he grows up, the boy says, “kind.” The boy asks how the mole defines success, and the mole says it is love. As they walk, the mole shares his favorite saying—“If at first you don’t succeed, have some cake”—and he reports that it always works (9). The mole says he had brought the boy two cakes, but he ate them both. During this discussion of cake, the book’s illustrations are in color.

The mole says that comparing oneself to others is a waste of time, and the boy wonders if there are any schools for “unlearning.” The old moles that the mole knows wish they’d listened more to their dreams and less to their fears. Together, the boy and the mole look at the “wild,” and the mole says not to fear it. That night, a fox finds them resting in a tree. The next day, they come across the same fox, trapped in a snare.