Pax, Journey Home

Pax, Journey Home is the 2021 sequel to Sara Pennypacker’s New York Times best-selling novel Pax (2016) and features illustrations by Jon Klassen. Set a year after Pax ends, the book finds protagonist Peter, now 13, wrestling with grief over his father’s death in the war and the abandonment of his pet fox, Pax. Pax, meanwhile, has mated with another fox, Bristle, and started a family. Pax takes to the role of father instantly, but both he and Peter know that with love comes the possibility of loss. Pax, Journey Home was the recipient of the Charlotte Huck Award and deals with themes of Parental Love and Sacrifice, The Role of Care and Kindness in Recovery, and The Importance of Community in the Healing Process.

This guide refers to the 2021 edition, published by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death and animal death.

Plot Summary

Pax, Journey Home begins a year after the events of Pax. Set in an unspecified modern time in America, the end of an unnamed war has left the country an ecological and emotional mess. Peter is now 13 and living with Vola, an older veteran woman who lives near Peter’s grandfather. Peter keeps her at arm’s length; he has experienced so much loss that the thought of loving someone again, only to potentially lose them, is more than he can bear. He spends his days building a cabin on Vola’s property. The work is hard and tedious, but it keeps his mind off his father and his pet fox, Pax, who he was forced to abandon last year.

Vola praises Peter’s work on the cabin and tells him she is going to have papers drawn up granting him a piece of her property so that he will always have a home to come back to. Peter is overwhelmed and feels like Vola is trying to replace his mother. He shouts at her that he does not need her or anyone and that this place isn’t his home.

Pax is in a new chapter of his life as well. After he realizes that Peter will not return, Pax moves in with Bristle, a vixen he met during the war. The two become parents to three kits, and as he and Bristle raise them, his love grows, and he knows he will do anything in his power to protect them from harm.

The Water Warriors are a group fighting to restore the natural water systems that were poisoned during the war. They travel across the nation trying to reverse the damage and help the locals (human and animal) impacted by the poisoned water. When Peter learns that the Water Warriors will be stopping at the old mill site, near his childhood home, he decides to join their younger group, known as the Junior Water Warriors. He tells Vola and his grandfather that he will only be working with them over the summer. What he doesn’t tell them is that he plans to stay at his old home, alone and for good.

Meanwhile, Pax and Bristle learn that they must leave their home soon because a large group of humans is coming closer to the reservoir. The kits are still too young to leave, so Bristle stays behind with them while Pax journeys out to find a new place to live. As he travels, he realizes that his daughter has followed him away from the den.

While on the trail with the Water Warriors, Peter meets a young couple, Jade and Samuel, and the three soon become friends. Jade tells Peter about a young fox family they saw by the reservoir, describing the mother fox, who had a burnt tail that looked like a whip. Peter knows this might be Pax and his new family: The vixen he’d last seen Pax with had a tail like that. Peter learns that although the Water Warriors will make camp in this area for a few weeks, Jade and Samuel are moving on to the next spot, and he asks to go with them. Though hesitant at first, when he explains the treacherous journey he made last year on crutches, they allow him to join.

After drinking from a still pond one day, the little vixen has trouble walking, so Pax keeps an eye out for an easier route. They approach a section of the river that appears calm, but as Pax wades into the water, the current takes his legs out from underneath him. His daughter follows him into the river, and although they make it out of the wild currents mostly unharmed, she is now too exhausted to travel. Pax finds a shelter for her to recover.

As Peter travels with Jade and Samuel, he becomes more open to talking about his recent losses. He especially feels a bond with Jade, who mentions that she tried to save some baby raccoons who were poisoned when they drank from a still pond. Peter tells them about his bond with Pax, who he rescued as a sick kit but later was forced to abandon, and his father, who was killed. Later, Peter lets it slip that he will be moving into his old home near the old mill site alone. Jade warns him that it may seem better to shut people out of his life but that he’ll be worse off than he is now.

Eventually, the trio gets a radio signal telling them that the Water Warriors are delayed, giving them time to relax until the others can join. Jade and Samuel decide to go to Jade’s grandmother’s house so that she can see them get married. She is ill, and they don’t want to delay the wedding any longer. They invite Peter, but he insists on going to his old home, so they go their separate ways.

Pax is having trouble getting his daughter to eat. He steps outside the den and catches a whiff of something familiar: his boy Peter. They are near the house where Pax grew up, and he goes back in to tell his daughter. She is scared of humans, but Pax assures her that not all humans are bad and tells the story of his friendship with Peter. While the vixen sleeps, Pax wanders out in hopes of seeing Peter.

Now that Peter is home, he is having trouble adjusting, surrounded by memories of his life before his father died and he was forced to abandon Pax. He sees Pax on the property, and the two are at last reunited. Peter fears that Pax will be wary of him now, but Pax shows no sign of resentment and stays to play with him until he senses that his daughter has awakened.

This pattern continues for several days. Pax can’t get his daughter to eat, but she will drink from the river and then fall asleep in the den. While she sleeps, Pax plays with Peter. One day, Bristle’s brother Runt appears at their new den. He and the rest of the family believed that the little vixen had died, but Pax shows Runt that she’s alive, though ill. The two leave her to go in search of eggs, the only food that she asks for these days.

While Pax and Runt are gone, Peter waits in his usual spot for Pax. Instead, he sees a baby fox wander out. With horror, he realizes that she is about to drink from the poisoned river. He throws a jar of peanut butter at the kit, hoping to scare her away, and Pax leaps from the brushes to rescue her.

Peter, filled with guilt for betraying Pax again, returns to his house and decides to follow in his father’s footsteps. After his mother died in a car crash when Peter was eight, his father collected anything in the house that reminded him of her and burned it. He does the same, gathering items from his old life and setting them ablaze. At last, he lets out the grief he’s held in for so long.

Pax is confused by Peter’s actions. He knows that Peter would never hurt him or another fox, so something must be wrong. Runt pressures him to return home to help the family because the large group of humans is returning to the reservoir. Pax knows that his daughter, lethargic and small, will never live through such a journey. He does the one thing he can do to keep his daughter safe: He gives her to Peter to raise.

Peter is shocked that Pax is giving his kit to him. He watches Pax leave and then looks down at the sick kit. He remembers when he found baby Pax and his father told him he should put the fox out of his misery. If he had, none of the following pain would have ever happened. Determined to make his father proud and avoid potential pain, he grabs his father’s gun from the shed and walks to the cemetery.

He spreads his father’s ashes, which he’s had all this time, on his mother’s grave. He then holds the gun and waits for the kit to pop her head out of the backpack. She mews in a way that reminds him of baby Pax, and he can’t go through with it.

Peter finally returns home to Vola after several more weeks with the Water Warriors. Vola graciously welcomes him back and tells him his grandfather has been making weekly visits to update her on the Water Warriors’ progress. Peter pulls the kit out of his pack, whom he has named Sliver. He is ready to have and love a new pet and a new community.