5/24/2023 0 Comments Scary stories for little foxes![]() ![]() Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. ![]() Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment. At times the action becomes more burden than forward momentum, but on the whole, this is a worthy follow-up, with a triumphant end attempting to answer the eternal quandary of safety versus freedom. Heidicker’s writing continues to shine, his poetic language depicting scenarios that will be too much for sensitive readers but will more than satisfy those with a taste for gore and tragedy. When Oleo escapes, he meets a family of orphaned, urban foxes whom he enlists in a quest to save his captured kin. Oleo, né O-370, is a fox with all the wildness bred out of him, and he and his family live in the relative safety of wire cages, heated by lamps, until they are turned into fox-fur coats. Readers don’t have to be familiar with the first volume to catch the thread of this sequel, and while there are some carry-over references (the yellow stench of rabies, a propagandized version of Beatrix Potter’s appearance), the terrors here are new and mostly a product of civilization. Three young foxes come across an injured cousin, who spins them tales of fresh horror. The travails of Mia and Uly in Heidicker’s Newbery Honor novel, Scary Stories for Young Foxes (2019), have become cautionary, inspirational folklore for a new vulpine generation. ![]()
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