In 2021, Sarah Yung of Publisher’s Weekly spoke with author Christian McKay Heidicker about his work, especially Scary Stories for Young Foxes and its sequel, Scary Stories for Young Foxes: The City. Heidicker acknowledged that his novel might be considered especially dark and harrowing in the content that it addresses and depicts. He explained the reasoning behind his choices as an author by saying:

I like to knock down walls in fiction, and there are more walls in children’s literature than anywhere else. I think there are some things that kids absolutely do not need to hear about until they’re grown. But there are other things, scary things, that I think kids need to know before they enter this increasingly complex and, let’s be honest, terrifying world.

I love this quote from Neil Gaiman: ‘I personally believe that if you are keeping people—young people—safe from the darkness, then, when the darkness shows up, you are denying them tools or weapons that they might have needed and could have had’ (Yung, Sarah. “Q & A With Christian McKay Heidicker.” Publisher’s Weekly, 2 Sept. 2021).

This philosophy is echoed in Scary Stories for Young Foxes when the storyteller herself expresses a similar sentiment before she begins her

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