Bad Badger

Ages 7 to 10, Grades 2 to 5

For fans of Odder and Skunk and Badger comes a heartwarming story of an unlikely friendship between a terse seagull and a badger who is not very badgerish.

Septimus is not good at being a badger. He adores the sunset. He dreams of going to Venice. And he lives alone in a charming cottage by the sea. He’s not unhappy with his tidy, solitary life, but there are times when being so bad at “badgerdom” makes him wonder if he’s even a badger at all.

When a gull of very few words lands on the windowsill, Septimus leaps at the possibility of friendship. However, his new confidant soon goes missing and Septimus is bereft. Determined to find his best—and only—friend, he ventures into new territory and encounters a cast of surprising characters. Can Septimus be as brave and bighearted as he’ll need to be to find Gully? Or is he really a bad badger after all?

Bad Badger is a young middle-grade novel about badgers, gulls, and learning that staying true to yourself means knowing who you are to begin with.

About the Author

Maryrose Wood is best known as the author of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, the acclaimed middle-grade series about a teenaged governess and her three raised-by-wolves pupils. She’s published young adult novels, too, as well as 2020’s Alice's Farm, which was an NCTE Charlotte Huck Recommended Book. Maryrose taught fiction writing at CUNY—Lehman College and NYU’s Gallatin School, and is proud to serve on the faculty of the Stony Brook University's Children’s Literature Fellows program. She lives in Southern California.