• Recently my daughter recommended a middle grade novel she’d read to my nine-year-old granddaughter: The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest, by Aubrey Hartman. This is the tale of a fox named Clare who, after being hit by a car and left to die, is given the choice of becoming “undead,” which means he could be an usher of souls to the afterlife, or he could just enter the afterlife. The afterlife has four realms: Progress, Pleasure, Peace and Pain. Each realm has a welcoming color all its own: progress is green, pleasure, gold, peace, a watery blue and pain, red.

The first encounter in the story is with a particularly nasty bear who wants to choose for himself when Clare determines the bear should be admitted to the realm of pain. Clare tells him, “’But if you try to enter a world where you don’t belong, you’ll wander for a long time. And eventually, finding nothing but the endless stretch of Deadwood Forest, you’ll end up back here, where we will have to repeat the process.’” Clare finally convinces the bear to go to Pain because, “’Just think, then, of all the suffering you could inflict on others…’” “This argument was always convincing to any animal who truly belonged to Pain.”

After the bear enters the realm of pain, Clare prepares to rest as ushers are given three days rest before the Afterlife sends them another soul. But it’s not to be. A badger, named Gingersnipes, turns up at his door that same night.  Clare hates badgers. It was a badger, after all, that left Clare to die in the road after he’d been hit by a car. After trying to send Gingersnipes to Pain she quickly returns. Despite his best efforts, she keeps getting sent back from realm after realm. The reason for this mystery only becomes clear much later in the story.

There are many twists and turns to the plot including a prophecy that says, “On All Hallows’ Eve, Deadwood will bring mayhem to Fernlight. And as the moon sets, the one in Deadwood will vanish forever.” Clare assumes this means he will vanish forever as there are no other animals in Deadwood, except for two mice who live in the garbage dump, hence the name Deadwood. Fernlight is the lush adjacent forest that has many animals and plants. But Clare doesn’t understand how Deadwood could possibly bring mayhem to Fernlight.

This book has so many charming details from the mushroom Clare nurtures and names Captain; the two mice who live in the Deadwood Dump and occasionally give him much needed information; to the monocle and cloak Clare wears to hide his injuries from when he was hit by the car.

This is a kid’s book that deals with heavy issues such as death, grief and loss. Not surprisingly, Hartman wrote it during the pandemic. But it is not a dreary story at all. Full of humor and even joy kids may understand it on a different level than the adult reading it. But perhaps I’m mistaken. Madeleine L’Engle, when accused of writing children’s books that were too complex for kids to understand, she replied, to paraphrase her–children understand. My books may be too complex for adults.