Thursday, June 02, 2005

A Truth Revealed

Mama Squirrel has discovered this scientific truth:

The fastest way to get young squirrels interested in reading is to start packing or opening boxes intended for a homeschoolers' book sale.

All of a sudden every single book is their favourite again, including The Foot Book and The Norfin Trolls Laugh Out Loud. "Have we ever read this one?" "Crayons hasn't read that one yet!" "You can't sell that!" "No, actually, that's going in the Free box." Wails of anguish...

Someone told Mama Squirrel that they have resorted to doing such packing in the middle of the night, out of sheer self-preservation. Lacking such a sense of stealth (and preferring to sleep in the middle of the night), Mama Squirrel has been using the basement rec room of the Treehouse to box up the extra, outgrown, unwanted, unloved books. And the squirrelings have been unboxing them just as fast. There are now books all over the floor of the nest and Mama Squirrel is ready to start pulling her fur out. She can't decide if The Norfin Trolls are closer to the Albatross or Poe's raven:

This twaddle all over the Treehouse floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!

Or maybe she will see them, like the Velveteen Rabbit, reborn and hopping back up on the shelf to join the Real Books.

(This idea makes Mama Squirrel very nervous and she wonders if she should tape the boxes shut this time.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, for a basement... You should see my living room floor. It's getting better with each trip to the used bookstore. Unfortunately, they give us store credit and we often come home with more books than we left with. I think that, instead of that shed my husband was thinking of building, we ought to build a library.

Leslie Noelani Laurio said...

"This twaddle all over the Treehouse floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!"

LOL! That's pretty good!

Ann Voskamp @Holy Experience said...

Your squirrels must be related to mine....ah, the tears over any book departed. But yes! Twaddle, good riddance!
Ann holyexperience