Pocketful of Fur. Deb Loughead. Illustrated by Lisa Birke. Vancouver, BC: Hodgepog Books, 2003. 47 pp., pbk., $6.95. ISBN 0-9730831-6-6. Grades 3-5 / Ages 8-10. Review by Carole Marion. *** /4

excerpt:

"Ouch! My ear! Get lost, Matilda!" When I pushed the bird off my pillow, she flew up to the top of my closet door and sat there squawking at me. Then she cocked her head and peered at me with those beady little eyes of hers, like it was my fault that we'd all slept in and nobody had given her an orange slice yet.

"Dirty bird, dirty bird," she squawked.

"All right already," I squawked back at her. "I'm getting up, dirty bird!"

Not too many kids wake up in the morning with a cockatoo nibbling on their ear. Or a dog licking their face. Or a cat playing tag with their toes. Or a rabbit sniffing their cheek. Or on some days, all of the above! None of my friends do, that's for sure, but for some reason they all think I'm so lucky. Of course none of them have to live in a "zoo" like I do.

Such is the life in the Harper household. Max's parents are animal lovers, birding enthusiasts and wildlife activists, "often at one protest or another supporting their causes when they aren't at work." Max's parents love animals so much that his dad gave his mom a tortoise as a wedding present. What kind of person gives a tortoise as a wedding present? They even work with animals since they operate their own pet store. The entire family lives and breathes animals literally!

I lay there on my bed, brooding about everything that bugged me. For one thing, I could never bring friends over to my place. Well, I guess I could, but it's just that I was a little embarrassed about the smell. Sometimes, walking through our front door smells like walking into a barn. It's not that our house isn't clean. My parents are careful about taking care of their animals. The littler boxes are always fresh, the papers on the bottom of Matilda's cage get changed every day and the dogs are shampooed at least once a month. But there's just no denying that unmistakable animal odour that fills up a house.

     Twelve-year-old Max does not like being the odd kid on the block. He would much prefer living in a quiet, sanitarium-clean home like his best friend Blake instead of sharing it with all those wayward pets. Many are refugees that have been rescued from the wild following an injury.

     One day, his parents bring home a tiny, black and grey squirrel they have found in a woodlot. They start "gushing over the squirrel like it was a new baby of something." Woody the squirrel becomes yet another pet in the Harper menagerie that Max must care for after school each day. But Woody proves not to be just another squirrel; he loves nestling inside people's pockets and manages to make several getaways before the family figures this out. Woody terrorizes the neighbourhood, making a nuisance of himself. Max realizes that some animals simply do not belong in houses, but he has a difficult time persuading his mother to give Woody his freedom.

"But something will happen to him," Mom said. He can't fend for himself."

"He'll learn," I told her. "He belongs in the wild. We've got to let him loose before he gets too tame."

Woody was starting to shred the curtains, to dig up plants, to chew on furniture. He was ruining stuff, and Mom was in complete denial. I didn't want to remind her about Reggie the raccoon. My parents had found him abandoned a couple of years back, and decided they would try raising him. It was really neat at first, bottle feeding him, this little ball of fur that liked to curl up on your lap and have a snooze.

But the bigger he got, the harder he was to control We finely set him free at a nearby ravine, but he came back and began terrorizing the neighbours, raiding garbage cans, scaring people because he wasn't afraid of them and never ran away when they tried to chase him. He even learned to take the screens off windows he broke into a few houses that way. We weren't very popular on our old street, and I didn't want the same thing to happen on our new one.

     Too late! A neighbour takes the decision away from Woody's mother by reporting the furry nuisance to Critter Ridders. What follows is a humourous romp throughout the neighbourhood, one which even involves old Mrs. Baxter whose reputation as a witch has petrified all the local children.

     The warm, intergenerational relationship developed between spry Mrs. Baxter and young Max and Blake is truly endearing, especially after she puts on her "old lady routine" to save Woody from being captured by the Critter Ridders representative.

"Sorry to bother you, ma'am, but I'm looking for Mr. and Mrs. Harper," he said.

"Pardon me?" she put her hand to her ear and I had to still a laugh behind my hand. "I can't hear too well."

"Mr. and Mrs. Harper. Do they live here?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure they do. But they're not here tight now, I'm afraid. Is there anything I can help you with, dear?"

"Someone called us about a crazy squirrel that's terrifying people, and we were told that it lives here."

Terrifying? What could possibly be terrifying about a baby squirrel? That's what I wanted to blurt out from my hiding spot, but I kept my lips zipped.

"Oh, I don't know about that. I haven't seen any squirrels in this house. There's plenty outside. Don't know if they're crazy, though." I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud!

"You're sure about that," the guy said. "You're sure there aren't any squirrels being kept as pets in this house that might have gotten outside?" He tried to peek over her shoulder into the rest of the room, like there might be crazy squirrels lurking in every corner, poised to attack.

"I think I know what a squirrel looks like, young man. And unless that cockatoo in the cage over there is wearing a disguise, then, yes, I'm pretty darn sure of it! No squirrels here!"

"Dirty bird, dirty bird!" Matilda said.

The Critter Ridders guy took a step back, like he was afraid Mrs. Baxter was going to slug him or something. By then, that laugh was fighting so hard with my lips to get out, I was sure it was going to escape any second.

"Well then, I guess you can't help me after all," the guy said. "Thanks for your time though."

"What's that, dear?" Mrs. Baxter said, putting her hand up to her ear.

"Never mind," he said.

     Animal lovers will relish this funny romp, and, like Blake, they will envy Max and his family's exciting lives. The black-and-white illustrations that illustrate the text are collages made up of drawings, photographs, swatches of fabric and wallpaper, and clippings from nature. However, their imaginative details are impeded by their lack of colour and size. This humourous tale would make a an excellent read-aloud and inspire creative art projects in the classroom.

Recommended.

Carole Marion is a Branch Librarian with Calgary Public Library's Shawnessy Branch. She has been working with youth and their caregivers for over sixteen years.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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