Going Squirrelly at the Library

Debra Oldenburg
Preschool Outreach Coordinator

It was several weeks ago when I first noticed them.  Small green acorns were appearing in my yard. Now I see them everywhere - in my backyard, my driveway, on my porch steps, in my flowerbeds, on the walkways at the library where I work.  In just a few short weeks the acorns have changed from tiny green ones into an array of many sizes and are now a variety of golden brown hues.  When I park near downtown Hickory’s square or in the library parking lot, I drive over the nuts and hear the very distinctive fall sound of acorns being cracked and crushed. I remember the time I tripped on one the size of a ping-pong ball at the library entrance and fell with my cart of 100 books flying everywhere.  The acorns remind me of the squirrels.
I see them running everywhere with their tails bushed and their cheeks and bellies fat.  I hear them chattering and at times I would swear they are in the top of the trees throwing acorns down upon my head!  Dogs and cats everywhere are watching; wishing they could be chasing the fuzzy little critters.  A fellow staff member cried when she hit one with her car and another flinched and swerved when she saw a flattened one in the road. It all started when I was unpacking a box of puppets I had ordered for the library. I tenderly pulled two beautiful squirrels from the box.  One puppet was a red squirrel that was posed in a running position.  The other was a very realistic gray squirrel sitting up with an acorn in his paw.  I posed the squirrels on a box and was rewarded with comments from my co-workers.  A few people grimaced and said they hated squirrels, commenting that they were just fuzzy rats!  Most of us wanted to pet the puppets and commented how cute and life-like they were.  That’s the reaction I wanted and get from the children who are visited by the squirrels.  It just wouldn’t feel like fall without acorns and squirrels.  Children love to hear and read stories about squirrels. Come for a stroll at the library, gather some good books and find an acorn or two before the squirrels get them all!

• The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri
• The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter
• Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt
• Nuts to You by Lois Ehlert
• Micawber by John Lithgow
• Squirrels Don’t Read Shakespeare by Jeffrey Sculthorp
• The Squirrels’ Thanksgiving by Steven Kroll
• One Wide Sky by Deborah Wiles
• Attila the Angry by Marjorie Sharmat
• Moon Glowing by Elizabeth Partridge
• Pumpkin Soup and Delicious by Helen Cooper
• How Groundhog’s Garden Grew by Lynne Cherry
• No One Will Ever Know by Carl Sommer