A Squirrel Attempts an Apartment Break-In in Nuts to You!

I’ve always wanted to have squirrels hanging around my house. Alas, nothing we put out seems to tempt them. In Lois Ehlert’s Nuts to You!, the narrator has a squirrel hanging around her apartment, seemingly bent on infiltration. The spunky child, who we never see, doesn’t much like that idea, though she seems to get a bit of a kick out of watching the bushy-tailed bandit attempt entry. She’s confident in the knowledge that her strategy will stop him in his tracks.

I don’t actually know for sure that the narrator is female, but considering that the author is a woman and she based the book on her own experience, that’s how I would imagine the child. It could just as easily be a boy speaking, but given the reference to Mom being mad at the squirrel for digging in the garden, it’s safe to assume the narrator is a kid.

The story is told in verse, with couplets. On all but two of the pages, the lettering is white; otherwise it’s black. The font is jumbo and easy to read, at least for the verses; scattered throughout the pages are tiny labels of various plants and animals. The words identifying them are unobtrusive, so they don’t interfere with the story, but you do run the risk of not noticing them at all; I didn’t my first time around. There’s more factual information in the back of the book, with four pages that discuss the classification, teeth, feet, tails, nests and food of squirrels.

The illustrations in the book are interesting. The creatures look mostly true-to-life; of the picture books I read this year in anticipation of Squirrel Appreciation Day, this one is definitely the least anthropomorphized. Squirrels and birds alike do have rather curious eyes, just black circles in larger circles – white for the squirrel, gray or yellow for the birds. Vibrant flowers, butterflies and other wildlife offset the drab brick red of the apartment building and the grayish brown of the squirrel.

I’ve never had a squirrel try to break into my house, but I have tossed peanuts at them on various occasions, just as the young narrator does. They generally respond quite positively to such an action, and it’s always fun to see what they will do with the prize that they have claimed. Nuts to You! captures the excitement of one of these encounters, and it shows just how much wildlife there is to be found even in the middle of a bustling city. Because the book is extra tall, it may not fit easily on a shelf, but the oversized pages are worth that minor inconvenience. This is a small moment that makes a big impression. I just wish that squirrel would come visit me!