Glowing Reviews for Thieves of Weirdwood

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First, there’s Booklist, who continues to pay me way too much respect:

https://www.booklistonline.com/Thieves-of-Weirdwood-Anna-Earley/pid=9730758

And then there’s this review from DaddyMojo, which is honestly one of the nicest things I’ve ever read about my work and sets my heart to rest knowing that someone out there really gets it:

https://www.daddymojo.net/2020/05/thieves-of-weirdwood-is-middle-grade-fiction-at-its-best/

And finally, this from the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/books/review/thieves-of-weirdwood-christian-mckay-heidicker.html?fbclid=IwAR1HJlQGEvMJfAWsRh7HxM3i-9tVedI4iJq-94ElZ1Ju-jcjm-48t08iBUM

If anyone needs me, I’ll be blushing in the corner.

Announcing THIEVES OF WEIRDWOOD (out in less than a month!)

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The world is a little scary right now. But if we're all going to be spending more time in our homes, it might be nice to have a diverting adventure story to read. Fortunately, I have just the thing.

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It’s out April 7th.

As you can see, Eion Colfer (of Artemis Fowl fame) called it “Startling, original, and epic,” which is more than I have ever hoped to be in my boldest days. And Kirkus said, “The series opener’s both funny and well paced [sic] . . . the world-building is fantastic . . . and the character development is splendid.”

I can only hope you agree.

I talked to my new and always wonderfully surprising friend, Betsy Bird, about how the book came to be here: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2020/03/10/in-which-the-proprietor-of-this-blog-allows-one-christian-mckay-heidicker-to-speak-his-piece/

Finally, apologies for the late announcement. My name wasn't on the book until after Foxes received the Newbery Honor, and I was going to sit out the whole promotional biz this time around. But honestly, it feels good to talk about this one.

Until April 7th . . .

The Tale of Little Miss by (ahem) Beatrix Potter

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Happy Haunted December, everyone!

If you haven’t read SCARY STORIES FOR YOUNG FOXES, turn back now.

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. . .

Are they gone? Good. I have a present for the rest of you.

Those who have read Foxes know that one of the book’s villains is a famous children’s author. You also know that this woman’s name is Beatrix Potter and that she wrote a story about Mia called The Tale of Little Miss.

What you might not know is that before Beatrix Potter burned the story, she read every word aloud to Mia in her cage. Mia connected with the story because it talked about saving siblings, and she listened so intently to Miss Potter that the words stuck in her memory. (Well, most of the words, anyway.)

So here is the story in full, preserved in Beatrix Potter’s voice as best Mia can remember.

(Unfortunately, the illustrations were destroyed when Mia peed on them. But considering that this act saved her life, I think we can forgive her.)


The Tale of Little Miss

by (ahem) Beatrix Potter


In the westlands there was a valley of fog most white, with the golden tops of trees poking through. And in that valley lived a young fox with her family. The fox’s name was Little Miss. She received this singular title because when she was born, her parents got into such a row at the hospital about what she should be called that they eventually threw up their paws and left the birth certificate blank.

Little Miss was an odd little fox. You or I might find her pleasant company, but both her parents and her brothers were quite perplexed by her dietary preferences. You see, Little Miss did not want to eat mice or rabbits or birds or chipmunks. In fact, she didn’t want to eat any meat at all. Little Miss wanted to eat oatmeal. And nothing but.

Little Miss’s brothers, on the other paw, were nasty brutes. They were called Leo and Elijah and they terrorized the innocents around the foggy valley. No goose, duck, or chicken could waddle to the store without having her tail feathers snapped at by these two naughty little foxes.

Little Miss wanted nothing more than for her brothers to stop hassling these poor birds and to become more civilized, like she. And so, every morning, she cooked a big pot of oatmeal for them. She was certain that if she could just give her brothers a taste for it, then their brutishness would be tamed. But no matter what she mixed into the oatmeal—cinnamon or cloves or honey or cream—the brothers spit it out upon the floor and said it tasted of mud.

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One day, a young chicken by the name of Henrietta decided to visit the shops. She belonged to Farmer Max, and laid eggs for him in exchange for free room and board in his coop. Henrietta was always terrified to leave her home for all of the horror stories she’d heard sung by the songbirds in the trees.

The teeth’ll kill you! The teeth’ll kill you!

Huuuuuungry bellies! Huuuuuuungry bellies!

Wwwwwwatch out! Wwwwwatch out!

But Henrietta was a very lonely person. And she had decided that it was high time she set out and become a chicken of the world. Unfortunately for Henrietta, she was not one hundred paces from her coop when  . . . wouldn’t you know her luck, she ran into Leo and Elijah.

The foxes were terrible vicious to the poor creature, and even managed to steal her pretty hat and pluck the beautiful feathers on top of her head. Henrietta was barely able to escape with her life. She flocked back to her home in the farmer’s coop where she hid forever, deciding it was better to be lonely than to be lunch.

From his farmhouse, Farmer Max had heard the commotion. He loaded his shotgun and fired two warning shots into the sky, frightening Leo and Elijah away.

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The naughty brothers fled back to their den with blood all around their muzzles. Their parents were away on a boating trip, but Little Miss gasped when she saw them. Oh, they made a terrible sight! She was just about to tell them they were very naughty and to clean their bloody muzzles in the corner bucket when there came an awful sound.

PoW!

Farmer Max was outside the den, shooting his shotgun and hollering!

“What fox’ll pay with its skin for harassing my lovely clucker?” he cried, for he was a man dedicated to his chickens.

Little Miss looked from the window to her brothers with blood all over their muzzles, while they fell into a state.

“The farmer will see us!” Elijah said.

“He’ll see the blood on our muzzles!” said Leo.

And they both cried at once, “He’ll shoot us all!”

Fortunately for her brothers, Little Miss was a quick thinker. It just so happened that she had purchased some strawberry jam from Jemimah Puddleduck that day, hoping that would be the ingredient that changed her brothers’ minds about oatmeal. She hefted the jar from the cupboard just as the shadow of the human filled the window of their little den.

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When Farmer Max peered into the fox den with his hideous face, he saw three fox kits delicately sipping gloppy oatmeal from spoons, sticky jam covering their muzzles, as if nothing was wrong with the world whatsoever.

The farmer scratched at the stubble on his chin.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said. “Vegetarian foxes.”

What had happened, dear reader, was he had seen the red on the brothers’ muzzles and the jam jar on the breakfast table, and he thought the blood was nothing but strawberries!

Farmer Max trundled off onto the horizon with his gun. And what happened to him or the next foxes he ran into, nobody knows.

Little Miss’s brothers were beside themselves with joy.

“I’ll eat oatmeal three times a day!” Leo said.

“Eleven times!” said Elijah.

They hoisted Little Miss up onto their shoulders, and even though she is like me and not partial to excitement, she bared with their brutish behavior this once.

That night, the foxes’ parents returned home, and their father lit a pipe of lavender.

“Anything exciting happen while we were away?” their mother asked.

Little Miss looked at her brothers, all curled up and safe in their hovel. “I believe I finally discovered a recipe for oatmeal that my brothers enjoy.”

“My,” her mother said. “That is exciting.”

And I, dear reader, could not agree more.

The End.