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 the 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!

Squirrels are found almost everywhere on Earth. They are native to Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Asia, but not here in Australia.

In North America, the western and eastern grey squirrels are very common. In Europe, the red squirrel is more common, but its numbers in Great Britain and Ireland are decreasing. The decrease in the red squirrel population is linked to the introduction of the eastern grey squirrel from North America. I experienced this firsthand in September while visiting Cornwall. We were holidaying in a barn not far from Trewithen, a magnificent old garden estate where they are endeavouring to restore the garden and breed red squirrels in captivity in order to increase their numbers. I was very excited, thinking I was going to see some red squirrels, but alas we did not. Never mind, I still think their plans are  worthwhile.

Squirrels do appear as book characters a lot! See here, but given how cheeky they seem to be they have become particularly popular as characters for ongoing series, many of which are in graphic novel format.

These series are in my school library:

Bear and Squirrel by Smitri Halls and Steve Small (3)

 

Newton and Curie The Science Squirrels by Daniel Kirk (2)

Norma and Belly by Mika Song (4)

Jonathan Fenske Nuts! (2)

Scaredy Squirrel  by Melanie Watt

Picture books (7)

Nutty Adventures (graphic novels) (4)

Squirrels Unlimited  by Mo Willems (5)

Twitch the Squirrel series by Vivian Vande Velde and Steve Bjorkman (4)

Bird & Squirrel by James Burks  (7)

The Dead Sea Squirrels by Mike Nawrocki and Luke Seguin-Magee (9)

And coming later in 2024, Book 1 of a new graphic series by Luke Seguin-Magee.

21st April Tea Day

”You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
~ C.S. Lewis

There is nothing nicer than a good read and a cup of tea. So celebrating Tea Day is a must. Tea is not something children give a lot of thought to, because very few of them actually drink tea, but so many children's picture books feature tea. At the very minimum they finish with and 'they all had tea'...it is a warm, secure, happy, family feeling to finish with. Think of The Elephant and the Bad Baby at the end where everyone goes back to the baby's home and his mother gives them tea and pancakes. Think of Alfie Gets in First and how after the problem of the locked door is finally solved everybody sits down for a cup of tea. Yes, these books are old but the pattern continues and now there are even stories with tea in the title.

Many years ago when I started teaching I did a lengthy integrated social science unit called 'What's in a cup of tea?' and my Year 5 class and I explored the tea industry, the sugar industry and the milk industry for a whole term. What fun it was and given my knowledge now of children's literature I would have had plenty of good books to add to it. What a shame the current curriculum doesn't allow for such tangents or flights of fancy anymore.

Below are covers of books in our library that feature tea parties, cups of tea or the importance of tea. The Biography of Tea pictured above gives a comprehensive history of tea and its role in many cultures.