The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest by Aubrey Hartman illustrated by Marcin Minor

When winds blow

Through Deadwood east

The undead monster waits to feast

On little bones

And braids

And toes

But don't you scream

Or its hunger grows!

While I did read this book fairly quickly, over a couple of days, it took me a little while to get used to the use of a girl's name - Clare for a male character - the undead fox.

What does undead mean? Well, when a creature dies it usually just heads off to the afterlife but there are some creatures that need help to find the right door or realm. This guiding or, as it is called here, the Ushering, is the job of the undead - in this case Clare the fox but there have been many others before him - Brickbane a fox; Eddifoot a racoon; Po an elk and Felix a moth. There are four destinations:

"Travel north from here and you'll find the realm of Peace ... for those who found joy in rest. Head east and you encounter the realm of Pleasure ... best suited to those who sought fun about all else. Directly west is Progress ... for those who loved work, service and effort. And finally travel south ... and one enters the realm of Pain."

Clare has been sending the souls who arrive at his cottage in Deadwood Forest to the 'right' door for over four years. He enjoys his work and loves tending to his extensive mushroom garden but deep in his heart he is lonely and also frightened because Brickbane told him, on the night of his death, that he was destined for Pain. And not only that a prophecy song is circulating:

"On All Hallows Eve, Deadwood will bring mayhem to Fernlight. And before the moon sets, one in Deadwood will vanish forever."

Then there is new arrival. It is a badger named Gingersnipes. Astute readers will realise something is wrong. Gingersnipes does not arrive in the usual way by knocking on Clare's door. When Clare sends Gingersnipes away to his assigned realm "he did not wait for the crackling sound of her departure".  This is a big mistake.

Hopefully now you have lots of unanswered questions. How did Clare die? Why did Gingersnipes arrive at this time? What does do the songs of All Hallows Eve mean? Who is the little girl with the red shoes? Can the message and advice from Hesterfowl be trusted? And most important of all what on earth is a braid?  (Of course, dear reader you know the answer to this final question but it is a mystery to Clare).

There is one very violent scene near the end of this book so I am going to say this is a book for mature readers aged 10+. 

All of this plot sounds every 'heavy' but there are some sweet touches of humour in this story and you are sure to enjoy meeting the rats at the dump named Nine and Two. The names of the mushrooms that Clare collects from the forest are also delightful. And I loved the way Clare always said 'travel true' as he sent lost souls off to their assigned realm. 

Here is a description of Clare's cottage:

"Clare, for example, had strung the ceiling with rows and rows of twine. The walls were lined with shelves crammed with jars of all shapes and colours, gathered from Deadwood Dump and filled with dried fungi. In the firelight the vessels glinted and glowed, splashing the hollow in jewelled hues."

Here is a line that made me smile - it is Gingersnipes speaking:

"I have a moose-sized bone to pick with you. Four times you sent me into that forest. And four times the coloured lights led me back here. Is this some sort of game? A test? Because I'm tired of it, fox!"

And later Gingersnipes says: "You're a tough nut to crack, Clare, and frankly I am not a squirrel!"

There is an interesting theme in this book about thirst - this is something I need to think a little more about. Being undead Clare does not need food or drink, but he makes special tea for all his visitors and so it seems important and very strange that once Gingersnipes arrives, and Clare's world shifts, he seems to be desperately thirsty all the time. 

Here is a description of Hesterfowl the grouse - "She wore a cloak of moss. A collar of bones encircled her short neck, some poor dead animal's rib cage fanning up and around her head. The feathers surrounding her eyes were smeared with berry pulp and groomed into sharp points." (I need to make special mention of the amazing illustrations in this book AND question why his name is not on the cover or title page. You can see his art here on Instagram). Marcin Minor lives in Poland.

Image source Instagram

I think it was the cover that first caught my attention. Checking some details I see the hardcover of this book arrived here in Australia in late February 2025 then, as I already mentioned I was given a generous book voucher for one of book chain stores here in Sydney - so when I saw they had the paperback which was released in April this book was an obvious first purchase.

SPOILER ALERT - Bookseller blurb: Clare is the undead fox of Deadwood Forest. Here, leaves grow in a perpetual state of fall: not quite dead, but not quite alive...just like Clare. Long ago, he was struck by a car, and, hovering between life and death, he was given the choice to either cross into the Afterlife or become an Usher of wandering souls. Clare chose the latter: stepping into a solitary life of helping souls meet their destiny. Clare's quiet and predictable days are met with upheaval when a badger soul named Gingersnipes (arrives). Despite Clare's efforts to usher her into the Afterlife, the badger is unable to find her way out of Deadwood. This is unprecedented. Baffling. A disturbing mystery which threatens the delicate balance of the living and the dead. Clare seeks the help of Hesterfowl--the visionary grouse who recently foretold of turmoil in Deadwood. But Hesterfowl divulges a shocking revelation about the badger that leaves Clare devastated, outraged, and determined to do anything to change their fate.

Read some young reader reviews - very insightful.

Heartbreaking, marvelously funny, and generously redemptive. Kirkus Star review

"I really love Gingersnaps" "A timeless book". Colby Sharp Newbery prediction.

US author Aubrey Hartman has written two books. Check out her webpage.  

Companion books:

Good Dog

Loteria

The Life and Time of Lonny Quicke

Magrit

Paradise Sands by Levi Pinfold

"White roses we follow, towards Teller's Hollow

Dead earth to a spring, the house of a King

A sip from the chalice, we enter his palace

Break bread for the Keeper now we descend deeper

Washed clean in his pool we fall under his rule

Away from what is, we all now are his"

These children/adolescents have clearly heard the opening six-line rhyme recited by their mother many times but instead of listening to the words and recognising they are warning or a prophecy, the words have become a little like a jingle that they sing along to in their car. Only the young girl knows there are warnings in these words. 

This is a story of enchantment, entrapment, courage, wisdom, patience, belief, temptation and above all love. The young girl will rescue her brothers no matter what the personal cost rather like the girl in the Wild Swans fairy tale. Water is an important underlying theme here too. The landscape is a desert but there is water in this mysterious place. The boys are eager to jump in cool water of the pool. Then we don’t see the boys again once the Teller issues his challenge. For three days the girl does not drink. Her body language shows her determination to succeed against The Teller. But I felt such shock when her act of compassion towards the flowers, when she gives them a drink, has unexpected and dire consequences. 

The sepia hyper realistic art with touches of blue and pink are reminiscent of art by Chris van Allsburg, Shaun Tan and Steven Woolman (The Watertower). 

This story has biblical overtones, it feels like a parable, and it has references to fairy tales such as Beauty and the Beast. Notice the repeated pattern of three – three days, three broken columns, three banquet scene, three brothers and three dolphins. The setting and time period are open-ended although we do recognise this is an older model car and the cinder blocks on the house also hint at a time from the recent past.

Right from the beginning the young girl, in her pale blue dress, shows she has a higher level of responsibility. Think about how she stops to lock the door to their house. 

Take a close look at the cover: golden fruit (Adam and Eve perhaps); the shadow of the girl is cut in half; the young girl wears blue dress does this signify innocence? I thought of the phrase - "the little child shall lead them”. There is a chalice in the corner of the cover. I associate this with the ceremony in a church where wine is shared during communion to represent the blood of Christ. The girl looks sad, and her gaze is directed toward the towering lion. He also looks sad or even perhaps resigned. 

Looking at the dust jacket the image stretches out and the face of the lion looks strangely like the face of a man in profile. The three pages where we see the banquet table are very interesting. On the first we have domestic animals eating human food. The next day, enormous exotic animals arrive. On the third day, though, the food is all gone, and the crows have arrived – do they symbolise death? Is the lion an echo of Aslan? Is this about free will? The dry remote forbidding landscape in this book is also a character. There are so many interesting shadows and sharp angles in the illustrations. 

Readers will have so many questions and they will be eager to revisit the story and illustrations. Have the children visited their mother before; where and what is this hospital; and did the meeting with The Teller and his dreadful bargain also happen to their mother in the past? So, the ending is bittersweet as the girl both succeeds and fails. 

If you are sharing this book with a group of High School students you could consider exploring these possible references - a painting of the Last Supper; fairy tales such as Beauty & the Beast, Hansel and Gretel and The Wild Swans. You might thing about Orpheus in the Underworld and classic literature such as Aslan from the Narnia books. Thinking about pop culture you could relate this story to music or television such as 'Don't pay the Ferryman', 'Hotel California', 'Breaking Bad' (the desert setting), 'Game of Thrones' (Ziggurat type building). 

Every part of this book design has been created with care. There is a different image under the dust jacket. The end papers are the same blue as the girl's dress. 

Paradise Sands is a CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) Honour Book. Here is the report from the judges (I was one for this round):

Right from the beginning, the young girl, in her pale blue dress, shows she has a higher level of responsibility. The characters have clearly heard the opening six-line rhyme many times, but instead of recognising they are a warning, the words have become a jingle they sing along to in their car. This is a story of enchantment, entrapment, courage, wisdom, patience, belief, temptation and, above all, love. The young girl will rescue her brothers no matter what the personal cost. An almost unbearable sense of bleakness is created through the dry barren landscapes and even the starkness of the house and hospital room. The landscape in this book becomes a character. Older readers will be eager to revisit the story and the exquisite, masterful illustrations. This book has the look and feel of a classic.

In her post on her blog Paperbark Words Joy Lawn gives some excellent suggestions for ways to explore this book with your older students. I would say this book is for mature readers aged 11 and that it should be added to every High School library. Read this interview where Levi Pinfold talks with Kirkus. See some of the art from this book and here are some review comments:

This one has all the hallmarks of a book that someone will buy for a child, the child will read and reread for years, and it’ll embed itself in the deepest folds and crevices of that child’s brain. ... If you need something beautiful and odd to give to a child, you could hardly do better than this. Betsy Bird Fuse 8

This is a truly eerie tale with much left for the reader to ponder upon. Pinfold’s illustrations are mesmerising, unsettling and haunting, drawing us to them again and again in search of further meanings. Red Reading Hub

The meticulous nature of Pinfold's art lures the reader's eye to the tiniest illustrative details, such as the texture of the Teller's mane, dirt-caked fissures in the marble columns and the girl's heartbreaking and resigned facial expressions. Cool blue endpapers stand in stark contrast to the leathery dryness of the sepia palette dominating this stunning and heavily symbolic story. Shelf Awareness

This mesmerizing work offers potential jumping-off points to discuss many topics, including magical realism, symbolism, family relationships and roles, and mental health. Kirkus star review

The washout-desert palette in the hauntingly beautiful realistic mixed-media illustrations creates an eerie sense of foreboding (carried through to the ambiguous ending) that cues readers into the otherworldliness of the story. Horn Book star review

This book has been added to the NCACL database of Picture Books for Older Readers. I highly recommend you explore this resource.

Companion books:

Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park

Historical Fiction is a tricky genre.  The author has to do detailed research so that the period in history feels authentic while ensuring the story feels fresh and does read like a list of history facts piled one after another. The other complex issue comes when the story involves a timeslip. How will the character go back in time? how will the character return to their 'real life'? and most importantly what has happened to time itself?

In Playing Beatie Bow Abigail, a fourteen year old girl who lives with her mother in the Rocks area of Sydney, finds herself transported back to 1873. 

Blurb: "The game is called Beatie Bow and the children play it for the thrill of scaring themselves. But when Abigail is drawn in, the game is quickly transformed into an extraordinary, sometimes horrifying, adventure as she finds herself transported to a place that is foreign yet strangely familiar."

You can read a full plot description here.

Lets go back to my original questions:

Does the story feel authentic? Yes and Ruth Park calls on all our senses with her glorious descriptions of this area in 1873. Her book filled with richly researched scenes but it never feels like a history lesson:

"Stone steps ran up one side, and on the other two tottering stairways curled upon themselves, overhung with vines and dishevelled trees, and running amongst and even across roofs of indescribable shanties like broken down farm sheds. These dwellings were propped up with tree trunks and railway sleepers; goats grazed on their roofs,; and over all was the smell of rotting seaweed, ships, wood smoke, human ordure, horse and harness."

"the night was almost silent. There was no sound of traffic except a dray's wheels rolling like distant thunder over the cobbles at the docks. She could hear the waves breaking on the rocks of Dawes Point and Walsh Bay."

"The gutters, made of two tipped stones, were full of garbage. Abigail saw scaly tails twitching amongst the rotting debris and sprang away."

I also loved the way Ruth Park lets her reader hear the voices of Beatie and her family:

"I dunna ken what that means,' said Beatie gruffly, ' but I can tell by your mug it's no compliment. I'm telling you straight, I'll not have you come between them. I'll break your head first." 

How does the character move through time and what has happened to time during their absence? Abigail chases young Beatie Bow through the streets of the Rocks and as she races along the area transforms from 1980 to 1873. While she is running she hears the Town Hall clock - it is five thirty. Abigail spends many weeks or even several months with the Bow and Tallisker family but on her return she hears the last note of the half hour. This means time has stood still in the 'real world' but of course Abigail herself has changed both outwardly and more importantly inwardly. 

In a few weeks a group of friends and I have tickets to see a theatre production of Playing Beatie Bow so in preparation I just re-read this classic Australian young adult book. Playing Beatie Bow won the CBCA Children's Book of the Year award in 1981 and the Boston Globe-Horn Book award in 1982.

In my Primary school library teachers often asked to read Playing Beatie Bow to their class. I always said this book was more suitable for a High School audience which is why I have put Young Adult in my set of labels. Abigail is abducted in an area called Suez Canal. The people who take her have plans to use her in their prostitution business. Ruth Park vividly describes the women and their dependence on alcohol and other drugs. These are not scenes I would share with a younger child.

"A girl in a draggletail pink wrapper wandered over and looked at her curiously. She seemed half imbecile, with no front teeth and a nose with a flattened bridge. ... something soft and squashy moved beneath her. She realised with horror that it was a woman, a kind of woman, ... with tangled hay-like hair, cheeks bonfire red with either rouge or fever, and a body hung with parti-coloured rags."

I first read Playing Beatie Bow in 1981. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it again forty years later. One thing that struck me this time is the way Ruth Park moves Abigail on from her fierce anger to a level of self realisation where she can feel true empathy for others.  The final scenes, back in 1980, do read a little like a fairy tale but I was so happy when Abigail found her one true love. Playing Beatie Bow is still in print. I hope the new edition (mine was from 1998) has a slightly larger font to give it a fresh look. The cover is the same as the one at the top of this post. I note it has 14 extra pages so I am hopeful that the print and white space are now more appealing.

Playing Beatie Bow has had many covers over the last 40 years including one I found in German:

His Name was Walter by Emily Rodda

"It's not true that only children can enjoy a really good children's story" Emily Rodda ABC radio interview with Angela Meyer.

Australian author Emily Rodda is a true writing talent. You may be familiar with the Deltora stories and Rowan of Rin books.  Previously here I have talked about Bungawitta and The shop at Hoopers Bend.  My personal favourite among her books is Bob the Builder and the Elves which is a simple junior novel and a delight to read aloud. Now we have His name was Walter which the publisher says is for 8+ but for me is much better suited to upper primary and junior high school readers. This is a spellbinding story which I read almost compulsively.

This book contains, as the cover says, "a story with in a story".  Four students and their teacher are stranded on a remote country road after their excursion bus breaks down. The group take shelter in a derelict house. One of the students, Colin, admires a small desk in the kitchen. He knows furniture like this often conceals hidden compartments.  He takes a closer look and finds a secret drawer. Inside this drawer is a book with a dramatically illustrated story.

To three of the children the house itself feels so strange. There are noises and strong feelings that seem to impact them almost violently. They gather together and begin to read the book they have found. It reads like a fairy tale or folk tale beginning with an orphan of unknown heritage who is living in a horrible institution with little prospect for a happy future. He escapes from this situation taking two tiny things which might point to his identity - a paper which says his name is Walter and a few strands of hair. By chance he meets a beggar woman who tells him a little more of his history but it is the encounter with a kindly witch woman who really settles his fate.

She predicts:
"You'll never be rich in gold but your life will be rich in other ways ... You'll protect a friend. You'll find true love. You'll free a prisoner. You'll champion the weak. You'll save a life. You'll keep the faith. You'll ... "

Having begun like a folk tale, a rags to riches story, the focus then references Beauty and the Beast especially when we read about Lord Vane.

"The man was hunched jealousy over an iron box heaped with gold. To Walter's horrified eyes he looked more like a beast than a human being ... The filthy undershirt that strained over his massive chest and sagging belly was blotched with patches of sweat. Hair like greasy grey straw stuck up all over his head ... Evil greed seemed to cloud the room like smoke."

I especially enjoyed the way Emily Rodda drew all the threads together at the end of this book showing the links between the 'fairy tale' from the book and the past history of life in the house and town. I mentally ticked off each item and felt satisfied all the pieces of this puzzle were once again joined in all the right places.

Here is a review from Readings. The publisher have generously provided you with four chapters as a sample of the text. Here is a special video with Emily Rodda talking about her books and their creation and a very recent radio interview.  I will predict, in fact guarantee, His Name was Walter will feature in our 2019 CBCA short list. Yes, yes it is that good.

Thanks again to Beachside Bookshop for providing this copy.

Wings of Fire Book One The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T Sutherland

I am a little late coming to this series which began with this first book in 2012.  In my school library these were such popular books that students even took to hiding them on other shelves so I was keen to see why? I actually did not expect to like this book but I quickly became caught up in the action and found myself rapidly turning the pages. There are now seventeen books in this series but don't panic if they are new to you too. This first book The Dragonet Prophecy is the first in a set of five which can stand alone although be warned by the end of book one you will want to rush out and grab book two.

It is a time of war. Dragon wars. Ruthless and terrifying and all about gaining power! Who will save the day? Five dragons who come from eggs that hatched on the brightest night.


MudWing - Clay

"He wasn't a natural-hatched hero. He had no legendary qualities at all. He liked sleeping more than studying and he kept losing chickens in the caves during hunting practice."

SeaWing - Tsunami

"Her deep blue scales shimmered like cobalt glass in the torchlight. The gills in her long neck were pulsing like they always did when she was angry."

SandWing - Sunny

"There was something not quite right about the littlest dragon. Not only were her scales too golden, but her eyes were grey-green instead of glittering black. Worst of all, her tail curled into an ordinary point ... instead of ending with a poisonous barb."

NightWing - Starflight

"His black NightWing scales made him nearly invisible in the dark shadows"

RainWing - Glory

"... her long, delicate snout, glowing emerald green with displeasure, rested on her front paws. Ripples of iridescent blue shimmered across her scales, and tonight her tail was a swirl of vibrant purples."

The Dragonet Prophecy centres on Clay. He has been told he is dumb but he demonstrates amazing emotional intelligence when the five are captured and taken to perform for Queen Scarlet.  These performances are battles where the loser is killed.  The queen has a champion - a dragon aptly called Peril. "No one can even touch me. I was born with too much fire."

All five dragons and Peril have to escape but they also have to work out who to trust AND try to outwit the cruel queen and her guards.  There is also the problem of their old minder Kestrel.

I do enjoy books about dragons but the strength in this book, for me, comes from the way Tui Sutherland gives each of the five dragonets strongly defined personalities.

Kirkus gave the graphic novel of this book a STAR review. This book series comes from Scholastic and they have made a very impressive web site with links to puzzles, a trailer and forums. Here is a detailed review.  Here is a podcast with Tui T Sutherland.  I would follow this series with the Dragon Keeper books by CaroleWilkinson and  Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke.