“All scary stories have two sides…Like the bright and dark of the moon. If you’re brave enough to listen and wise enough to stay to the end, the stories can shine a light on the good in the world. They can guide your muzzles. They can help you survive,” (Heidicker 5).
On a dark autumn night, seven fox kits find the storyteller and beg for a scary story, but are all seven kits brave enough to stay until the end?
Scary Stories for Young Foxes has been on my reading list for awhile and I’m so happy I got my hands on this for the spooky season!
I love animal stories, I love creepy stories, and usually the two go hand in hand, or they do if in some of the more classical animal tales. There is more to being an animal than Beatrix Potter will have you believe, it’s a short, horror filled life that books like Watership Down and White Fang perfectly show and I think Heidicker did a wonderful job of showing that to a modern audience without it being too terrifying to children.
But it’s still pretty scary! Heidicker isn’t afraid to show the scary things that our fox kit protagonists Mia and Uly must face in order to survive, a hard feat for two little fox kits that isn’t shied away from. One kit’s family becomes exposed to the yellow sickness which makes their teeth click and their mouths foam, another is targeted by their family for being born with a lame paw. There are monsters with extra skins that trap animals on paper (learned some unpleasant things about Miss Beatrix Potter), deep lurking creatures with pointed teeth, and the ever present fear that food will be scarce and the threat of winter.
I was surprised by how dark it got at times, but that came more from descriptions of hunted prey and severed limbs. It was still pretty tame compared to classics like Watership Down, but a young reader looking for something scary will be delightfully chilled by these descriptions. I was more surprised by the hope at the end, tinged with fear. I was expecting something that was just meant to be scary and was delighted to find a lot of heart in it.
Scary Stories for Young Foxes is a wonderful book for the early horror reader. Chilling but still full of love, this was a sweet scary book to reader for Halloween!
Publication: August 20 2019
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Pages: 314 pages (Hardcover)
Source: Library
Genre: Fiction, Middle Grade, Horror
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤
Summary:
The haunted season has arrived in the Antler Wood. No fox kit is safe.
When Mia and Uly are separated from their litters, they discover a dangerous world full of monsters. In order to find a den to call home, they must venture through field and forest, facing unspeakable things that dwell in the darkness: a zombie who hungers for their flesh, a witch who tries to steal their skins, a ghost who hunts them through the snow . . . and other things too scary to mention.
Sarah O'Connor 