Little Ones

A collection of fiction and graphic ephemera, Little Ones plays in a space of shadows and in-betweens.

Informed by Appalachian experience and traditions of Southern storytelling, these award-winning stories are populated by the world’s dispossessed, disturbed, and disregarded: the quiet interior life of a passed-over laborer, the bedtime story a goose tells a snake about a boy named Grey, moments of a road-killed raccoon's afterlife, advice to the children of a future apocalypse. 

These mischievous polyvocal tales are an exercise in audacity, in embracing the bizarre and carnivalesque within us. Grey Wolfe LaJoie employs uncanny wit and deep empathy to explore the way shame can turn into desperate violence, and to shed light on the smallest among us.

Praise for Little Ones

“This is utterly unforgettable work. I have longed for a new book to startle me with something new, and this one did. Inside these pages, we come to know the dreams of dogs and the thoughts of horses and geese, and they don’t disappoint. These stories are truly wild yet seamlessly unspooling. This is a book that should garner insistent praise.” —Glenn Taylor, author of The Songs of Betty Baach

“The first time I read Grey Wolfe LaJoie's Little Ones I read it because I was sucked in by its beauty and gravitas. The second time I read the book I read it to see how LaJoie pulled it off. I still haven't figured it out. This is a haunting, touching debut, as powerful as it is mysterious.” —Wiley Cash, author of When Ghosts Come Home

“Little Ones is holy! Exciting! Original and strange! It says, ‘Shhh…listen to that little voice deep down inside. Remember it? That’s your imagination. And it’s the only way you’ll survive.’ Grey Wolfe Lajoie has blessed us for now and forever! I’ll never see the world the same again!” —Ashleigh Bryant Phillips, author of Sleepovers