Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss. ( )

Pearl, a cheery little girl in polka-dot shoes and overalls, has built several birdfeeders and is excited to get started on birdwatching. But, as any bird lover might expect, she gets a very strange, furry bird - a squirrel. Frustrated, she tries to bar the mischievous gray squirrel from the peanuts in her teacup birdfeeder, but no matter how cleverly she works, the squirrel keeps getting in and snatching those peanuts!
Finally, she puts all her efforts into an elaborate obstacle course, but of course the squirrel defeats it easily. Then Pearl realizes that it's actually a mama squirrel feeding her babies, and decides to feed both squirrels AND the birds, giving the mama squirrel lots of opportunities for teaching her kits how to navigate the obstacle course.

Back matter includes "some squirrelly facts." This book first caught my eye because, well, I might have a little... thing going on with the squirrels in my yard. However, I would like to point out that it is not ONE squirrel, but at least seven, with more coming and going, and they do not have the courtesy to only eat from the feeder I set up just for them, in company with the rapidly-expanding chipmunk population they get into everything. So it's not exactly a realistic story - there would have been a lot more than one squirrel, unless it was tough enough to fight off the other squirrels (yes, I've had to clean squirrel blood off my feeders) and after she emptied the teacup in 3 seconds flat, she would have cleaned out the other feeders!

Ahem.

I admit that squirrels ARE cute and clever and fun to watch, and this is a sweet and silly story that shows two girls, human and squirrel, using their ingenuity to the fullest!

Verdict: However you feel about squirrels, this story will make you giggle and maybe even get kids creating some of their own obstacle courses for the squirrels in their backyards!

ISBN: 9780823442515; Published August 2020 by Margaret G. Ferguson; Borrowed from another library in my consortium