Scary Stories for Young Foxes

Scary Stories for Young Foxes is a middle-grade horror novel written by Christian McKay Heidicker and illustrated by Junyi Wu. It was published in 2019 by Macmillan Publishers and is followed by a sequel titled Scary Stories for Young Foxes: The City, which is also illustrated by Junyi Wu. Scary Stories for Young Foxes was named a Newberry Honor Book in 2020, and as of September 2021, it was in the process of being developed into an animated series. Christian McKay Heidicker studied creative writing at Broadview University and is a former educator who began his writing career by developing educational content for elementary, middle school, and high school students. His first two novels, Attack of the 50 Foot Wallflower (2016) and Cure for the Common Universe (2018), were designed for a young adult audience, while his Thieves of Weirdwood trilogy, like Scary Stories for Young Foxes, was written with middle-grade audiences in mind.

Told as a frame story, Scary Stories for Young Foxes comprises two plots that unfold simultaneously. The first surrounds a group of young fox kits in the present day who venture out to the den of a famous storyteller to hear a story so scary that their mother could not bear to listen to the end. In the novel, the dialogue between the kits and the storyteller is printed in white text on black pages in order to differentiate it from the tales that the storyteller weaves for his enraptured audience. These scenes appear at the end of each separately titled story. The white pages with black text represent the notoriously scary story that the storyteller unfolds for the fox kits. (To differentiate between these parallel plotlines, this guide implements italicized headings to indicate which aspects of the summary sections refer to which storyline the summary is referencing.) Throughout the novel, the illustrations of Junyi Wu are rendered dramatically in grayscale and depict critical moments in the narrative.

This guide refers to the 2019 paperback edition of the text.

Content Warning: Scary Stories for Young Foxes is intended to frighten its readers and includes depictions of torture, murder, sadism, physical and psychological abuse, and ableism, along with indirect hints of cannibalism and the habits of sexual predators and references to animal abuse.

Plot Summary

One night, in the haunted Antler Wood, seven fox kits beg their mother to tell them a scary story. All of the stories she offers are not frightening enough to hold their interest. Their mother warns them never to go to the Bog Cavern, the home of a storyteller who knows the most terrifying tale of all. Predictably, all seven fox kits sneak out and visit the storyteller, who warns them that they must remain until the end of the tale or risk becoming paralyzed by fear forever. As the storyteller relates each of the installments in the eight sections of Scary Stories for Young Foxes, the kits abandon the Bog Cavern one by one, until only one kit is left remaining to bear witness to the fate of the storyteller’s heroes, Mia and Uly.

Mia’s story begins on the morning that her life spirals into chaos. She and her siblings arrive for lessons with their teacher Miss Vix, only to find that their brother has inadvertently infected Miss Vix with the “yellow sickness” (rabies). Faced with the attacks of their dangerously sickened teacher, Mia and her siblings scatter, and Mia is the only one who manages to escape unscathed. Mia’s mother ushers her away from the sickness’s grasp, only to find herself caught in an animal trap. Mia manages to save her mother but is captured by Beatrix Potter, who keeps Mia captive and tries to kill and skin her. Mia struggles with the subconscious knowledge that she left her siblings behind and that her mother left her behind at Miss Potter’s house. She manages to thwart several of Miss Potter’s attempts to kill her, and when she meets her new best friend, Uly, it is while she is hanging from a rope by her neck outside Miss Potter’s house, struggling to bite through the fibers.

Meanwhile, the story turns to gentle Uly’s origin story. Before meeting Mia, he is the only male kit in a litter of seven foxes, and he struggles to negotiate life with a disability; his mobility is constantly hindered by a useless foreleg. His sisters tease him constantly, insinuating that he is a liability to their collective safety and that he should be left to die if he cannot fend for himself. Uly’s mother, Mercy, does her best to keep him safe but struggles as a single vixen mother. One day, Uly’s cruel father, Mr. Scratch (also known as Wynn), whom their mother had claimed was dead, arrives at their den and demands that Uly’s mother choose which of her kits will die: Uly or his sisters. To spare his mother this terrible choice, Uly runs away toward danger. The smell of a fire draws him to Miss Potter’s house, where he finds Mia hanging from a rope and helps to free her.

Spurred on by Mia’s determination to find her mother and inspired by her industriousness and optimism, Uly accompanies his new friend on an adventure through the woods. Uly manages to conquer his fears in a treacherous swamp, where an encounter with an alligator relieves him of the burden of his useless paw. As they travel on in search of Mia’s mother, they are attacked by a badger. Mr. Scratch appears, saving them, and Mia, unconvinced by Uly’s warnings that Mr. Scratch is dangerous, follows the older fox back to his den. She soon realizes that Mr. Scratch is just as conniving and cruel as Uly said he was, and while Uly hides in a cave below, Mia tries to think of a way for them both to escape. When Uly tells Mia that his mother, Mercy, is one of the vixens trapped in Mr. Scratch’s den, Mia tells Mercy that her son is waiting for her. Without Mia’s knowledge, Uly and his mother devise a plan to trick Mr. Scratch into believing that Uly is finally dead. This ruse allows Mia to escape. When Mia runs, Mr. Scratch chases her, and Mia’s leg is caught in a human trap. Uly rescues her. Then, the two kits team up with Mercy to escape. They defeat Mr. Scratch, or so they believe.

Uly says goodbye to his mother, and he and Mia venture out to find a new home of their own. When winter arrives, they stumble upon a den of abandoned kits when looking for shelter. Uly is determined to adopt the kits and sets out to find food. There, he is confronted by Mr. Scratch. Meanwhile, two of the kits are stealthily kidnapped by an unknown white fox, and Mia must venture out to find and rescue them. Mia finds one kit in the jaws of a white fox, but the other kit is mortally wounded and does not survive. Mia is heartbroken to discover that the white fox is her brother, Roa, whom she believed dead but has been living a miserable existence under the control of the yellow sickness. Mr. Scratch and Roa fight, and Mr. Scratch becomes infected with the yellow sickness. In his final confrontation with his father, Uly defends one of the kits and tricks Mr. Scratch into falling into a frozen river to his death.

The narrative shifts back to the den of the storyteller; only one kit is left to listen to his story, for all her siblings have fled in fear. The storyteller does not tell the remaining kit that Uly is alive; Uly is supposed to appear in the den and reveal himself at the end of the story, but he is late. Instead, the storyteller learns that the last remaining kit is also named Mia, just like the heroine of the story, and that she bears the name of her great-great-great-great aunt, who saved her great-great-great-great grandmother from a human trap. It is revealed that the storyteller is Mia herself, sharing her own experiences with myriad young foxes who come to her den. Her purpose is to prepare them for the unpredictable dangers they might face in the world. Once the last kit has gone and the story has ended, Uly appears, and he and Mia, now quite old, proceed back to their den together.