In my house, we consider ourselves “Scaredy Squirrel” first adaptors. We have been with him since the beginning, and we tell all our friends about him. We love squirrels (mostly the stuffed or animated kind – the actual living, breathing kind, not so much really.) This time, Melanie Watt combined two of our favorite things, squirrels and Halloween. When you think about it, they really do go together so nicely. Well, pretty much, after many precautions are taken, and as long as the trick-or-treating doesn’t venture too far from the tree. Better still; make it work from home if you can.
Since we have not actually trick or treated on Halloween for the past two or three years around here (hurricane, fierce snowstorm, plague of locusts, etc.), we are starting to consider the holiday with the same amount of precautions Scaredy would take. Is everything battery operated? Can the scary strobe lights run for longer than ten minutes without electricity? Are there matches near the votive candles? Did we buy battery-operated votive candles? Do we still have that old boom box (battery operated) to play “Monster Mash” and “The Purple People Eater”? Do we have enough flashlights, water, lanterns, generators? Do we have batteries?
Despite all this, we consider ourselves big Halloween planners and list makers, so we appreciate the care Scaredy takes in preparing for the big day. In fact, as we prepare for the holiday this year, we are going to judge everything by the scare-o-meter, just to make sure our haunted house is safe for children (and squirrels) of all ages. And we will keep a copy of this book near the flashlight, so that we can read it when the lights, inevitably, go out.
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