I’ll place Scary Stories for Young Foxes next to Coraline and Spirit Hunters on my bookshelf. Part of the book takes place in winter, so it would work just as well for a haunting read in the dead of that season. The Bottom LineĪ wonderfully scary middle grade book (with perfectly matched illustrations). But that changes towards the end of the book, as the framing narrative becomes part of the conclusion to Mia and Uly’s story. The framing device of seven kits listening to an old storyteller share terrifying tales on a “chilled autumn night” serves more to build suspense than link the stories together (as the stories chronologically continue from one another on their own). The eight stories alternate between Mia and Uly’s experiences, until the two connect. They explain how two kits, Mia (whose siblings turn rabid) and Uly (the runt of a litter of cruel sisters), end up on their own. They’re the first part of a continuous narrative. The first two stories read well enough as stand-alones.

The ‘scary stories’ interconnect more than I expected. ) Some scenes become particularly creepy if you imagine the story was about people and not ‘just’ foxes, such as Mr. As the title of this post alludes, a Beatrix Potter who pursues taxidermy becomes a horrendous figure when seen through the eyes of a captured kit… (The story in which she features contains what I found to be the most morbid scenes in the book – the gutting of a rabbit Mia had been conversing with.

Each ‘monster’ frightens in its own distinct way. But the progression of Mia and Uly’s journeys keeps them more interesting than that. If I described each story individually, they might sound like monster-of-the-week.

The stories offer some properly frightening, chills inducing scenes. As an autumn read, the book delighted me. I read Scary Stories for Young Foxes over two days in late October. Featuring eight interconnected stories and sixteen illustrations.

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. When Mia and Uly are separated from their litters, they discover a dangerous world full of monsters. The haunted season has arrived in the Antler Wood.

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