"Tesnohlidek's novel is no fairy tale. It presents a world of not-so-innocent animals living out their short lives in brutal harmony alongside a world of longer-lived humans who are no less brutal, scarcely more intelligent, and a good deal less happy. Neither Tesnohlidek's animal nor human world is an ideal one, but it is his genius that he is able to lead his readers to an acceptance and final understanding of nature's grand design, just as he has led his hero, the forester Bartos."
- Robert T. Jones, in a 1985 afterword to The Cunning Little Vixen