Black Squirrel

My books for boys are action-adventures & mysteries. I don’t necessarily write books about animals, although there are often animals in my stories. You would find dogs, horses, cats, wolves, and others, even though mine are primarily people stories.

But I do like animals.

As a young boy, you might find a wild rabbit I’d caught, birds, a chipmunk or two, a tame squirrel…we even had a skunk living at my house. I was always fascinated with squirrels which were plentiful in the oak trees in the woods that surrounded our house. I even caught and tamed a couple of them. (Now there are more rules about that, but not when I was kid)

Here, where I live in Illinois, my back yard has only had red and gray squirrels for the 30+ years we’ve been in this house. But for some reason, my favorite has always been the black squirrel. I’d see them as I traveled to other areas of the country, but never in the region where I live…until this year.

Seemingly, from out of nowhere, a single black squirrel has arrived, and decided to make my back yard its home. I’ve enjoyed watching him gather acorns alongside the red squirrels and gray squirrels.

Who knows, I might just have to work him in to one of my future books.