UPDATE: Author Don Corrigan will be speaking about his book, “Nuts About Squirrels” at High Ridge Library at 6:30 on July 22
With the Cardinals in such a dismal period, fans are looking for Rally Squirrel. Where has he been the past few weeks?
“Rally Squirrel needs to return,” said local author Don Corrigan, who has just penned a book a book about the furry creatures. “He is in the book several times, thanks to the Cardinals and Dan Martin, who gave permissions for him to jump into the pages of Nuts About Squirrels.”
Don Corrigan, the award-winning writer and editor-in-chief of the Webster-Kirkwood Times, South County Times and West End Word was hoping to find the Rally Squirrel in his travels, writing the book Nuts About Squirrels which recently hit the bookstores.
Nuts About Squirrels is his sixth book, but why a book about squirrels?
“Everyone thinks Mickey Mouse is the most important anthropomorphic rodent in our popular culture,” said Corrigan. “No question that Walt Disney’s mouse is formidable, but taken in the aggregate, squirrels have much more of a presence in our popular culture. And think about it, a squirrel was the unofficial mascot for the 2011 World Series Cardinals.”
As Corrigan points out squirrels are not your average rodents. They have been stars in the mass media for many, many decades. Besides Rally Squirrel, some squirrels who have risen to fame include Rocky the flying squirrel of “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle,” Jimmy Durante’s “Rupert,” and of course the squirrels made famous by Chevy Chase in his movie Christmas Vacation (“Squirrel!”) and Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy.
For those who don’t know Rupert, he was a performing squirrel who found someone’s money stash hidden in the ceiling of the second floor and poked it though the ceiling of a poor family, making them think “it was money from Heaven!” That was then but this is now: a billion-dollar video game industry now gives us superhero, Squirrel Girl, and the ultimate “bad boy” of video game fame, Conker Squirrel.
With Nuts About Squirrels, Corrigan has given us the definitive work on squirrels in real life and in virtual life, reveling in recounting news stories of squirrel mischief. Squirrels have shorted electric grids, invaded homes and businesses, destroyed the innards of autos and even transmit a strain of the old Bubonic Plague.
Squirrels are everywhere in the St. Louis area and can be a menace to gardeners and others, but in spite of their shortcomings, they are still the dependable darlings of advertising and public relations. They are featured in the legacy advertising of newspapers and the new social media of Twitter and YouTube. Squirrels appear globally in creative advertising for beer, ales, energy drinks, cereals, banking services and more.
A number of public relations firms have adopted squirrels as their brand, because they argue that squirrels are strategic planners. Did you know some towns use them to promote tourism: Olney, Illinois, is the “Home of the White Squirrels” and Marysville, Kansas, promotes itself as the “Home of the Black Squirrels.”
Corrigan’s sense of humor and unique take on things comes out as he chronicles squirrels who have shorted electric grids, homes and businesses, destroyed the innards of autos and even transmit a strain of the old Bubonic Plague. In his final chapters of Nuts About Squirrels, Corrigan shows how squirrels are the stuff of American legends and folk tales from around the world.
“During a presentation about my book, Forest Park: Images of America the audiences told me a lot of park squirrel stories,” said Corrigan. “This was another inspiration for this latest book on the outdoor fuzzy creatures we all know so well.”
This fun book is available where books are sold and at a special book signing on June 1, 2019 at the Webster Groves Bookshop. Nuts About Squirrels would be a fun Father’s Day Gift.
BOOKSIGNING
Don Corrigan will be signing the book at the Webster Groves Bookshop, 27 N. Gore, from 11 a.m. to1 p.m., Saturday, June 1.
Author Annie Blum will also be at the book signing explaining, selling and signing her book, “The Steamer Admiral and Corrigan will also be signing his book “Forest Park: Images of America
