Scary Stories for Little Foxes

2019 Newbery Honor Book

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Christian McKay Heidicker

Heidicker's web page opens to a graphic titled
"Purveyor of Fine Words" followed by a short bio he recommends stealing:

"Christian McKay Heidicker reads and writes and drinks tea. Between his demon-hunting cat and his fiddling, red-headed fiancée, he feels completely protected from evil spirits. Christian is the author of the Newbery Honor-winning Scary Stories for Young Foxes, Thieves of Weirdwood, Cure for the Common Universe, and Attack of the 50 Foot Wallflower. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. cmheidicker.com"

You must watch Heidicker's June 2020  Newbery Honor acceptance speech - "scary stories have to mean something."

Junyi Wu

Wu's work in colored pencil, watercolor, charcoal and digital Photoshop creates layered, dream-like -- just short of nightmare-like -- illustrations for Scary Stories. Her second children's book illustration is Lindsay Metcalf's Beatrix Potter, Scientist released in September.

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World Relevance

Resilience: the ability to thrive in the middle of challenges or adversity.  The dictionary definition says part of resiliency is the ability to snap or bounce back into place or shape.

Who doesn't need resilience right now? In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic emotional, psychological, physical as well as community resilience are necessary to weather the challenges. Helping our children to develop the resiliency skills is important for their mental health -- resiliency helps a child manage stress and anxiety -- and will help them to recover or rebound quickly when life returns to a new normal.

The little one was relieved to hear a nice part of the story for once. But she could sense they were far from the end. The sounds of the Antler Wood still made her skin jumpy. Each tumbling leaf swiveled her ears. Every shadow looked like a dangling fox skin.

"Mia and Uly's meeting was a welcome respite from what they'd been through," the storyteller said. "But it's dangerous thing to start caring for someone else. Now they each had two foxes to look after instead of one. And they were about to stumble upon a place that was neither field nor forest. Neither meadow nor wood. They were going to see something few foxes had seen before. And those who had seen it had not escaped with their lives."

If the little one had felt a touch of safety, that strangled it.

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Synopsis

This is a story within a story -- seven little foxes listening to stories late into the night told by a barely seen storyteller. The description inside the book's jacket flap tells you everything you need to know about the kits responses to the story...

"The first flees the teacher with the dark, gooey eyes.
The second from six sisters whose tongues tell lies.
The third escapes a woman who peels foxes skins.
The fourth slinks away from Golgathursh's grin.
The fifth wets the ground when he smells Mr. Scratch.
The sixth turns tail when the Paw finds its match...
The seventh little fox in the wood all alone, facing down a ghost beneath branches of bone.

One little fox stays the whole night through. But can she make it to the end? 

Better yet, can you?"

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Learning Connections

• Resilience Guide for Parents and Teachers, American Psychological Association
• Building Resiliency in Children, HealthyChildren.org by American Academy of Pediatrics
• Building Resilience in Children Using Fun Games, Tom's of Maine
• 25 Ideas for Teaching Kids Resilience, BounceBackParenting.com
• Resilience Activities – 9 Resilience Building Activities for Parents to do with Kids, BounceBackParenting.com
  

Ages: 9-12, middle chapter book readers, 320 pages. Scary stories of fox kits fighting to survive in an unforgiving wilderness.

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