Showing posts with label squirrels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label squirrels. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

news from the book nook: squirrel friends

Random observation of the day: did you know squirrels take dust baths? I thought dust baths were mostly reserved for elephants and chinchillas, but I just witnessed our little bushy-tailed neighbor enjoying a bath in the flowerbed. Naturally, I wondered if he remembered to dust behind his ears. Then I thought wouldn't that make a lovely story for a picture book...which brings me to this inspired blog post. You have the squirrel to thank for it.
Fall storytimes were always some of my favorites: farms, leaves, pumpkins, apples, and squirrels. Everybody loves a good squirrel story. Maybe it's because so many of us can relate to their squeaky, loud antics. Or perhaps it's because they often seem to purposely place themselves in the middle of traffic and then dart out of the way at the last second (remember that commercial where the car swerves and the squirrels fist bump afterwards). Maybe it's the twitchy, bushy tail or the way they sniff out last year's buried nuts. Whatever it is - there's some lovely squirrel picture books out there!

Personally, my favorite story is from my own childhood - we had a "pet" squirrel who lived in the grove of trees down the road. He'd take nuts from our hands, sit on our shoulders, and follow us to our houses every evening. Amazingly, he didn't have rabies, but he might have had some mites... He was our friendly squirrel friend named Paul. One day I'll write his story, but until then here's some of my favorite squirrel friend books: