21st January Squirrel Appreciation Day

The 21st January is Squirrel Appreciation Day and as I live in Australia where the only squirrels in the wild are some northern palm squirrels that stem from those that escaped from Perth Zoo, I get to appreciate them mostly through picture books, where they make amazingly popular and  amazingly cute book characters. I have written about them before. Here you will see all the series of books for young children that feature squirrels.

Today, here's a 'scurry' of picture books that I like.

• Squirrels Leap, Squirrels Sleep  by April Pulley Sayre and Steve Jenkins

• The Squirrel's Busy Year  by Martin Jenkins and Richard Jones

• Nuts to You!  by Lois Ehlert

• The Squirrels Who Squabbled  by Rachel Bright and Jim Field

• The Leaf Thief  by Alice Hemming and Nicola Slater

• Squirrel's Family Tree  by Beth ferry and A.N. Kang

•  Cyril and Pat  by Emily Gravatt

• The Very Special Thing  by Alex Willmore

More squirrel books to look for.

 

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.

22nd October Nut Day

On 22nd October it is Nut Day, a day to celebrate nuts and all they have to offer animals, including us, nutritionally. This is not easy to do in schools as so many students have nut allergies. Some students are allergic to peanuts only, Peanut Day is the 13th September, but there are lots of other nuts. How many can your students list? Read April Pulley Sayre's Let's Go Nuts! and make a list.

Looking through the library catalogue for books about 'nuts' I realised that if I exclude the peanut books and the peanut butter books then what I was left with are mainly about nuts and squirrels and the nuts are acorns.

I love oak trees and acorns. I spent many hours as a child collecting acorns and making acorn people and boats and I would have dearly loved to see a squirrel run down the branches of the oak trees, but I live in Australia so no squirrels. That doesn't mean though that there cannot be a 'nut' book display and a cuddly toy squirrel set amongst the books.



Start with the classic Chicken Licken, Chicken Little or Henny Penny, where an acorn falls on a chicken's head and he runs off to tell the king that the sky is falling. Silly, but good fun with all that poultry following him without questioning the initial premise. Then there is a lovely new book by Lou Peacock and Yasmeen Ismail simply called Nuts! which takes sharing and quarrelling to a new level.


If you still want others with squirrels:
• We Need More Nuts! and Please, No More Nuts! by Jonathan Fenske
• Aw, Nuts!  by Rob McClurkan
• The Nut Stayed Shut by Mike Henson
• The Nutty Nut Chase by Kathryn White and Vanessa Cabban
• Scruffle-Nut by Corinne Fenton and Owen Swan
• Nuts to You!  by Lois Ehlert
• Nuts to You  by Lynne Rae Perkins (illustrated novel)

Without squirrels:
• I Want that Nut! by Madeline Valentine ( mouse and a chipmunk)
• Oh, Nuts! by Tammi Sauer and Dan Krall (chipmunks)
• Nuts in Space by Elys Dolan (an elite crew of furry animals)
• a series by Eric Litwin (of Pete the Cat fame)and Scott Magoon
The Nuts: Bedtime at the Nut House (Hazel and Wally Nut and family)
The Nuts:Sing and Dance in Your Polka Dot Pants
The Nuts:Keep Rolling!

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.