21st January Squirrel Appreciation Day

It is very easy to appreciate squirrels when you have very little knowledge of them and for you they are lovely looking mischievous characters in children's picture books. But I get the feeling that for people who live with them they may well be like possums are for me where I live...pests! I have seen lovely big red ones in Switzerland,  very busy, but small red ones in England and  brown, quietly busy but not easily distracted ones in America, and I thought they were all gorgeous, but here in Australia we do not have squirrels, so I feel justified in appreciating them. I love Melanie Watts' Scaredy Squirrel books and so do the children who frequent my library. My timid and worried students can laugh at Scaredy while needing lots of reassurance themselves and they reborrow the same books from this series over and over again. I also love the squirrel series that starts with Those Darn Squirrels by Adam Rubin. Here the squirrels are brazen and pesty. But, my favourite squirrel in a children's book has to be the endearing one in Waiting for Winter by Sebastian Meschenmoser, who helps Bear work out what snow is.