Squirrel Hotel

by William Pène du Bois, Paul Heins (Introduction)

A charming tale for Children of a retired toy maker who builds a house for squirrels equipped with Electricity! Text illustrations by the author.

Genres: Fiction

47 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

William Pène du Bois was an American writer and illustrator of books for young readers. He is best known for The Twenty-One Balloons, published in April 1947 by Viking Press, for which he won the 1948 Newbery Medal. As illustrator he was twice a runner-up for the Caldecott Medal.

The Twenty-One Balloons is the work by Pène du Bois that WorldCat reports most widely held in participating libraries, by a wide margin. His other most widely held works are five books written by others, which he illustrated (below), and the two Caldecott Honor picture books, which he also wrote.

From 1953 to 1960, Pène du Bois was art editor of The Paris Review, working alongside founder and editor George Plimpton.

Reviews

[Lars Guthrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harder to like than 'The Twenty-One Balloons' or 'The Giant,' because it's so wistfully bittersweet. The narrator meets a 'terribly old man,' secretive about the calling--an ornate and Rube Godberg-esque contraption for squirrels--he has found at the end of a long and imaginative life, but obviously wanting to pass that calling on to the right person. And then the old man is gone, and the narrator is stranded. There is something childlike, appealing, and sad in Pene du Bois's final plea for his readers' assistance.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightfully written and illustrated children´s (?YA) book about characters at a park pond that the narrator, a reporter, observes, and decides to write a story about one of them, the creator of the Squirrel Hotel. This is a book that can probably be read in about an hour - and reward the reader with its charm and wit, as he is drawn into the ultra-imaginative, quasi-realistic world of the Bee´s Orchestra and the Squirrel Hotel.

The book somehow reminded me of a magical afternoon some years ago in a nearby small park/community garden, on a ¨Make Music NY¨ day, where a few spectators watched a succession of two or three folk type acts, with the final performance being that of a woman playing a toy piano, the tinkling notes barely making it into the back row of seats, where I was sitting. The attendees later got a chance to check out the miniature instrument and discuss it with the artist. It was somehow a unique experience - so ethereal and so perfect in a way, as traffic swirled outside the bounds of the quiet community garden (where residents continued to tend their plants even during the concert). Somehow, I imagined the fictional Bee´s Orchestra, which included miniature bells, to be similar to the program of performances that afternoon in Long Island City.

I think the ¨message¨ of the book, (if there is one, aside from its entertainment/escapist value) is that life for the old man (the Bee´s Orchestra impresario and Squirrel Hotel creator) was possibly more rewarding once he had to scramble to survive and come up with ways to make a living, once he had exhausted his nest egg and lo and behold found he was still alive although his funds were exhausted. Rather than simply making money as a businessman, a store owner, or, when he retired, spending his nest egg on a lavish lifestyle, once he had used up all his money, he had to rely on his wits to live - hence the creation of the Bee´s Orchestra. His life became highly original and creative once he became an inventor and creator - albeit a highly eccentric one. Perhaps the message of the book - subtle as it is - is that the best part of life is not necessarily when you are most powerful (as he was when he owned the toy store) or rich (as he was or thought he was when he was spending his nest egg) but rather, when you are creating things, imagining, dreaming, as well as helping others or even other creatures, since the Squirrel Hotel was intended to be an improvement on the tree house the squirrels were haphazardly piling into at night - roomier, better accommodations, with a wrap-around porch and even miniature chairs (not used by the squirrels) and beds (used by the squirrels). All in all, the book, in its deadpan style, was terribly funny, will be at least amusing to most readers, of any age!