years ago, when my daughter Rebecca was 14, we started writing stories together. I wrote a few children's stories at the time, and this is one of them.
Suitable for ages 4 to 8 (read-aloud).
Part 3 of 3 in the “Why Does It Work Like That?” series
Why Do Squirrels Have Bushy Tails?
When squirrels first appeared on the planet, they looked pretty similar to how they do today. The major difference was their tails.
While their tails were still made of hair, they were much thinner, rather like a rat’s tail.
You may not know this, but squirrels are messy creatures. Inside their homes, they tend to leave twigs, moss, and the shells of nuts and acorns all over the place, and since the beginning of time, this has been a problem for them.
Until one day, when one enterprising young squirrel decided to clean up his home. He found that brushing away the debris and dirt was difficult with his little arms and feet, and it left him very tired, so he decided to use his tail as a broom instead.
Now, he found that swishing his tail around was much easier, but with such a thin tail, the task still wasn’t an easy one to accomplish. Still, he carried on, and over the course of the day, he swished his tail around so much that something rather amazing started to happen. The hairs began to spring out, and his tail became bushier and bushier, and the sweeping became much easier.
At first, all the other squirrels laughed at this funny-looking youngster, but they quickly stopped when they saw how wonderfully clean his home was, and exactly how it got that way.
And that, dear friend, is why a squirrel’s tail is bushy, and why today squirrels have very tidy homes.
An original story by Andrew Scaife (written in 2013)
© Andrew Scaife, 2013–. All rights reserved.
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