Signed by author. Green cloth boards with squirrel family drawing inlayed. Ernest Seton spent part of his youth in the backwoods of Canada and worked as a naturalist for the province of Manitoba. He spent many years in the plains of the United States where he gained an intimate knowledge of the native tribes and the animals that lived there. In 1910, he became founder and chief scout of the Boy Scouts of America. He wrote and illustrated many books especially about animals and became known for his juvenile fiction on the subject.
From Forward:
"These are the ideas that I have aimed to set forth in this tale.
1st. That although an animal is much helped by its mother's teaching, it owes still more to the racial teaching, which is instinct, and can make a success of life without its mother's guidance, if only it can live through the dangerous time of infancy and early life.
2d. Animals often are tempted into immorality—by which I mean, any habit or practice that would in its final working, tend to destroy the race. Nature has rigorous ways of dealing with such.
3d. Animals, like ourselves, must maintain ceaseless war against insect parasites—or perish.
4th. In the nut forests of America, practically every tree was planted by the Graysquirrel, or its kin. No squirrels, no nut-trees."

Ernest Seton spent part of his youth in the backwoods of Canada and worked as a naturalist for the province of Manitoba. He spent many years in the plains of the United States where he gained an intimate knowledge of the native tribes and animals that lived there. He was a wildlife artist who founded the Woodcraft Indians in 1902, regarded as one of the earliest youth organizations in modern history. In 1910, he became founder and chief scout of the Boy Scouts of America. He wrote and illustrated many books especially about animals and was known for his juvenile fiction on the subject.

This is, of course, about a squirrel's life. Early parts of it really rushed through some of the story. The squirrel is orphaned at a young age and kept by a boy who puts it to nurse with his cat's kittens. Then the barn burns down and the people suddenly move away (the chapter about the fire and the people deserting the farm was all of one page)... the story moves on and mostly tells how the squirrel now lives in the forest- taking some time to adjust to the new situation, learn food sources and strategies, but for the most part having an edge over its competitors because after being cared for in captivity it was larger and healthier than the ordinary wild squirrels. The narrative got intriguing when, as an adult raising young with its mate, this squirrel protagonist Bannertail fell into sinful living and had to learn from his mistakes or die. Yes, it became a moralistic story. The squirrel discovered intoxicating mushrooms in the forest and became addicted. It suffered for a time going back again and again for the mushrooms, acting wildly aggressive to common enemies while under the influence, being sick the next morning and estranging his family. Eventually the effects of the mushrooms almost killed it, and then it learned to avoid them and taught its young likewise. There's also a very dramatic scene where the entire squirrel family battles a snake. Only one of the young squirrels doesn't make it to adulthood (earlier in the book, not from the snake), and in the end Bannertail is triumphant over all his difficulties, living the life wild and free high up in the treetops with his mate.

The feature illustrations are lovely in detail, and the more frequent marginal drawings very amusing and comedic.

from the Dogear Diary ( )

IT was a rugged old tree standing sturdy and big among the slender second-growth. The woodmen had spared it because it was too gnarled and too difficult for them to handle. But the Woodpecker, and a host of wood-folk that look to the Woodpecker for lodgings, had marked and used it for many years. Its every cranny and borehole was inhabited by some quaint elfin of the woods; the biggest hollow of all, just below the first limb, had done duty for two families of the Flickers who first made it, and now was the homing hole of a mother Graysquirrel. ( )