The villain of this book is a cat, and the cat is not doing a single thing wrong.
Travis finds an orphaned baby squirrel, names him Fluffy and brings him inside. Mother is against it. Thud the cat is worse than against it, and Thud does not need a reason. The rest of the book is a household working out whether a wild animal can live in a house with them, which is a question your child will ask you for real one day, probably in the driveway, probably holding something.
Short, illustrated, and part of the Calpurnia Tate, Girl Vet series by Jacqueline Kelly.
The science it actually teaches
I will be straight with you. This is the thinnest of the Girl Vet books on formal science, and I would rather say that than pad the section.
What it has instead is a set of real animal facts holding the plot up, and if you name them out loud once, the funny story turns into a lesson your child keeps.
A baby squirrel cannot live on cow's milk. Wild babies need a formula built for their species, and they need to be warm before they are fed, because a chilled baby mammal cannot digest what you give it. Most of what looks like an abandoned baby is a mother two trees away, waiting for you to leave.
Thud is not being wicked. A cat is a hunter whether or not a cat is hungry, because hunting and appetite are separate systems in a cat. A well fed house cat kills all the same. That is the reason a squirrel and a cat cannot share a house, and it is worth your child hearing it in those terms rather than as a story about a mean animal.
And a squirrel's front teeth never stop growing, which is why a squirrel indoors chews everything it can reach. It is not naughty. It is anatomy.
The book runs on all of that without stopping to teach it. That is what the Stealth Science shelf is for.
The child it lands with
The child who wants an animal you have already said no to. The reader in the middle of the grade band who has stalled on longer books and needs a short one with pictures that still respects them. The younger sibling who will sit for this one because it is funny and there is a cat in it.
It is also the easiest door into the series. If you are buying one Girl Vet book to see whether they take to it, buy this one.
One place to stop and talk
Stop when Mother puts her foot down. Do not ask whether she is being fair.
Ask your child what the squirrel actually needs, out loud, as a list. Warmth. The right milk. Room. Something to wear its teeth down on. Distance from a cat. The list settles the argument without anybody having to win it.
What to know going in
This is a gentle book and the honest caution is not about content. It is about the band on the box.
The store tags this at grades 4 to 7, and that band is generous at the top. This is an illustrated chapter book with short chapters, wide spacing and a light plot. A confident sixth grader will finish it in a sitting and feel talked down to. Buy it for the bottom of that band, for a read together, or for a reader who needs a win, and it is a good buy. Buy it for a strong twelve year old and you have wasted ten dollars.
The one real world caution is small and worth saying anyway. The story models a child bringing a wild animal into the house, and a real orphaned squirrel is a job for a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, not for a kitchen box. Say that once, before your child finds one, not after.
Where to get it
$9.99 at A Squirrelly Situation, a dollar over the two earliest books in the series and the lightest of the four on actual science. Of everything on the Stealth Science shelf, this is the one to buy for a reason rather than a subject: the pet argument you can feel coming. Aim it at nine or ten, not at the top of the tagged band.
If your child liked this one
Books we have written about that sit close to this one, by reading level and by subject.
Counting Sheep: A Birth, a Broken Wing, No Vet
Counting Sheep: Calpurnia Tate, Girl Vet by Jacqueline Kelly
Grade 4 to 7
Skunked!: The Warning a Skunk Gives First
Skunked!: Calpurnia Tate, Girl Vet by Jacqueline Kelly
Grade 4 to 7
Emi and the Rhino Scientist: How One Calf Happened
Emi and the Rhino Scientist by Mary Kay Carson
Grade 5 to 8
Browse every book we have written about by age, by kind of book and by subject: Find the right book for your child. Or see the whole Stealth Science shelf.
