The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Atwood, Margaret. Old Babes in the Wood. Penguin Random House LLC, 2023.

Margaret Atwood's Old Babes in the Wood is a collection of 15 short stories. While the collection features recurring characters and settings, each story presents a unique and distinct approach to form, style, and point of view. For the sake of clarity, the following summary offers a more streamlined mode of explanation and relies upon the present tense.

In Part I, "Tig & Nell," "First Aid," Nell and her partner Tig take a first aid class in preparation for giving talks on a nature cruise. Their instructor's horrific stories throughout the course inspire Nell's reflections on all of her and Tig's close encounters with death.

In "Two Scorched Men," Nell recalls her and Tig's friendships with two men named John and François. Although John, François, and Tig have all passed away, Nell is reluctant to close her account with their deaths. She therefore chooses to remember them enjoying themselves together.

In "Morte de Smudgie," when Nell's cat Smudgie dies, she engages in a silly writing project to process her grief. Years later, in the wake of her partner Tig's death, she realizes she was not grieving her cat but anticipating her partner's death.

In Part II, "My Evil Mother," "My Evil Mother," throughout the narrator's childhood, her mother has insisted that she is a witch. Although her stories are charming when the narrator is little, over the years they begin to seem like delusions. Before her mother's death, however, she tells her daughter that she invented these tales to make the narrator feel safe.

In "The Dead Interview," Margaret Atwood conducts an interview with the late George Orwell using a medium. They compare and contrast the times in which he lived to her contemporary era.

In "Impatient Griselda," a storyteller weaves a tale about two sisters, Pat and Imp, for a group of quarantined patients. Although they are unhappy with the story's ending, the storyteller argues that at least she held their attention.

In "Bad Teeth," Lynne is frustrated when her friend Csilla accuses her of having had an affair with a Newman Small years prior. Csilla later confesses that she invented Newman, and thus the affair. Lynne decides to dismiss the matter because she loves her old friend.

In "Death by Clamshell," the ancient philosopher Hypatia offers the real version of how she died. Her reflections on her brutal death inspire her reflections on the past.

In "Freeforall," Sharmayne is the matron of Least House in a futuristic realm. Sharmayne reflects on the ways in which her world has changed since a sexually transmitted disease altered the population's sexual freedom.

In "Metempsychosis: Or, the Journey of the Soul," Amber transmigrates from her snail body into the body of a human woman. She misses her snail body and feels alienated from herself. However, she realizes that her ability to think is evidence that her soul self is still alive.

In "Airborne: A Symposium," Myrna, Chrissy, and Leonie get together to organize an award for an emerging artist. Throughout their afternoon together, their conversation is constantly derailed by tangents and reminiscences.

In Part III, "Nell & Tig," "A Dusty Lunch," after Tig's father's death, Nell finds a series of curious letters and poems in his things. She realizes that because everyone close to her father-in-law is now dead, his history has become inaccessible.

In "Widows," Nell responds to her friend Stevie's letter. In her first draft, she is open and honest. She decides not to send this version, however, as she does not want to be regarded as a pitiful, lonely widow.

In "Wooden Box," Nell spends a few days at her and Tig's cottage in the woods. Each object she encounters while there conjures memories of Tig and makes her cry.

In "Old Babes in the Wood," Nell and her sister Lizzie stay at their family's old cabin. Because Nell has recently lost Tig, she feels brokenhearted throughout their stay. Lizzie's unspoken understanding and constant presence comfort Nell.