Little Foxes

"Little Foxes" is a book written by Michael Morpurgo in 1984.

Plot

Billy is an orphan who has had many foster families, but none of them have worked out. He is currently living with a foster mother in the suburbs of a city. They don't get on well, and at school Billy is not good at subjects, especially English (he cannot read out loud because he has a stutter). One night, Billy tries to run away, and runs into the nearby abandoned land where there are the ruins of a monastery. There is plentiful wildlife living in this place that everyone calls "The Waste Ground". Billy fathers three orphaned foxes and develops a relationship with a swan, too.

Billy decides that his life is becoming a little better - he has found some animal friends and is losing his stutter. He returns to his foster home, but this doesn't last, and eventually he runs away with one of the young foxes (the other two were gassed by the local council), and goes on many adventures.