A Really Super Book About Squirrels is a sincere tale of a man’s unrequited love for a squirrel. Not a children’s book, but rather a simple-minded book for adults, it’s an odd piece of commerce. It’s tough to figure out which target demographic Andrews McMeel had in mind when they published this over the summer. (Their publicist says the book should appeal to both “squirrel lovers” and “squirrel haters.”)
In any case, the book is a charming (though slight) piece of art. Cartoonish pen and watercolor illustrations by Graham Roumieu help tell the story of a man’s obsession with befriending a neighborhood squirrel. For no apparent reason, the man falls in love with this rodent to the point where he dreams about him at night and daydreams about what they would do together, from dancing to operating a bulldozer to sunbathing.
Much of Graham Taylor’s amateurish free verse is funny in its own right. The man tries talking to the uncomprehending squirrel to gain his friendship, but each time the squirrel runs away, the man seems genuinely surprised and hurt:
“There you are squirrel around the tree
…I walk around to say hello but you’re gone.
…You’re on the other side of the tree now.
It’s like you’re trying to hide from me.
Why would you do that?
Now things are getting out of hand.
Is this some cruel game?”
The man also questions many of the squirrel’s habits:
“Sometimes while walking I see you cross the street.
You run to the middle and then stop as if you’ve forgotten something.
What is it I wonder.
You look back and forth to see if it is safe to continue, or if you should go back.
Just run I think, a car is coming.
… This whole procedure strikes me as strange.”
Taylor’s handwritten words are laid out in the style of a free verse poem, but his writing seems completely unconcerned with meter, rhyming, stanzas, or any other poetic standards. The result is a very conversational and completely unpolished style. No one’s going to think he’s much of a writer based on this book — yet the charm is there.
When his verse does fall a little flat, artist Graham Roumieu makes up for it with his illustrations. We see odd, subdued drawings of the squirrel sitting on the man’s kitchen floor, using an electric lawnmower, giving a wrapped present to a chicken, and jumping up to ring the man’s doorbell. Every one of the illustrations is interesting, and most of them are funny.
This book may seem foolish and obvious, but that seems to be the point — that a willingness to be foolish and say obvious things is a good way to have fun, even for adults. It certainly seems like the authors had fun making the book, and it is a fun book to read.
Brian O’Keefe can be contacted at [email protected].