Over the summer last year, I spent a few days with my friends Erica and
Art, who live near Boston. We’re a bunch of tree-hugging English majors,
so naturally, one of our day trips was to Walden,
the secluded area where Henry David Thoreau lived in a tiny cabin he
built himself. The night before we went, Erica’s sister called, and she
warned me, “Don’t get sucked in by the finger puppets in the gift shop!”
Of course, the main thing that this accomplished was to cause me to seek out
said puppets. I wouldn’t say I got carried away, but when I saw the
squirrel finger puppet, I couldn’t resist bringing him home.
Unlike the squirrels in Ty’s Beanie Babies line, the Folkmanis gray
squirrel puppet has no assigned name. Come to think of it, I’ve never
given him one. While Walden would be a natural choice, or perhaps Henry,
I think I’ll call my little scamp Jeremy, in honor of Jeremy Davies,
the LOST actor whose father, I recently learned, is a children’s author whose books include the field guide Rabbits, Squirrels, and Chipmunks.
I like to imagine Mel Boring taking little Jeremy to the park and
encouraging him to commune with the squirrels there; maybe that’s where
he got the twitchiness that shows up in so many of his characters...
Jeremy stand about four and a half inches tall. It’s three inches from
the front of his feet to the base of his tail, which is about four and a
half inches long and very bushy. Jeremy is in a sitting position, with
all four paws stretched out in front of him, two like legs, two like
arms. Each paw has three pointy black toes, which are flat and made of
felt. His stomach is white, but the rest of him is silver; there’s a
different consistency and hue to the tail, which is more
salt-and-peppery and very soft and fluffy.
The white up the
front extends to the mouth, which is set in a sort of ambiguous frown.
The stitched-in nose is black and consists of two lines, but the eyes
are hard, round plastic balls set against white felt. His tiny ears are
white on the inside and are very close to the eyes, on the side of the
face. Right at the bottom is the finger hole that extends to the lower
part of Jeremy’s head. As is typical for finger puppets, the range of
motion is limited; I can’t move his “hands” or “feet” from the inside,
though his tail is mobile enough that if I give him a little shake,
he’ll respond with a flick of the tail.
This is a very cute
little puppet, especially for someone who loves squirrels as much as I
do. Since today is Squirrel Appreciation Day, I couldn’t resist bringing
him downstairs to enhance the decor, though I’ll have to keep an eye on
the cats and especially the dog, lest they mistake him for a chew toy.
Whether you want him to star in your puppet show or sit on your shelf,
for only six dollars, the Folkmanis squirrel finger puppet is a grand
little playmate.
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