Hide and Seek (13 page)

• White-tailed deer live in every county in Michigan. In fact, they can be found in every region of the United States except the Desert Southwest, Alaska and Hawaii. Adult deer grow to weigh an average of 125 to 225 pounds, and males are usually larger than females. Though their natural life span is about nine years, most deer don’t live beyond three years in the wild.

• A male deer is called a buck, a female deer is a doe, and a baby deer is a fawn. A “button buck” or “nubbin buck” is a male fawn, usually six to nine months old by its first winter.

• The top three hazards for deer are hunters, starvation and collisions with cars. To avoid hitting a deer, try to have someone in your car scan the sides of the roads where deer might cross. This is especially important in the early morning and at dusk, when deer are on the move.

• Deer are ruminants. This means they have four stomachs, just like cows, and they graze on a variety of plant material—a hungry deer will eat almost any plant. The only sure way to protect your plants, shrubs and trees is to put a tall fence around them.

•
Wild animals belong in the wild. Getting too accustomed to humans, their houses and their food can be very dangerous for them. In Michigan, for example, people hunt deer at certain times of the year, so to protect themselves, deer should stay away.

• While searching for food, deer and other wild animals can get tangled up or caught in all sorts of things. Please become part of the Animal Rescue Team and pick up the trash you see around your neighborhood and parks, and keep your garbage and recycling bins securely fastened.

WHATEVER THE DILEMMA, IF IT’S GOT FUR OR FEATHERS (OR SCALES!), THE CARTERS ARE THE ONES TO CALL!

Dear Readers,

Like many of my animal stories, this one is based on a real incident that happened here in the Grand Rapids area in the fall of 2006. A man filmed a young deer with a plastic pumpkin stuck on its head. News reports led to a public discussion about the most compassionate way to handle the situation. People all over the world saw the photos on the Internet and expressed concern. The pumpkin was found five days after the deer was first sighted. (He thoughtfully left tufts of his hair in it so we’d know.) Professionals who worked on the case thought the recent rain and drop in temperatures helped the deer free himself. When plastic freezes, it becomes rigid (like most frozen stuff). That and the slipperiness from the added water helped the deer rub the pumpkin off. But there were no eyewitnesses—this is just the hypothesis.

Of course, we’ve all been wondering if Keisha would get her puppy, including me and my editor, Nancy. We both wanted her to, but hey! Mama’s rules are Mama’s rules. I needed to find a way for the Carters to realistically adopt a domestic pet. One day, as I was walking my dog, Sophie, in the park, we met another adorable, friendly dog, named Simon, who, his owner
told me, was part coyote. So I began researching coyote-dog crosses, typically called coydogs or dogotes. We decided that if having a puppy helped Mama’s family, then it would be okay with Mama. Razi’s growing fear of dogs and the need for a good sniffer to find lost animals helped Rocket’s case a lot!

If you go to my Web site, you can see two of the photos I used to help me tell this story. As you look at them, I’m sure you’ll understand why writers say to each other that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Happy Reading!
—Sue

There are two artists whose work has particularly inspired the Animal Rescue Team. The first is Beverly Cleary. From time to time, I reread the books I loved as a kid. Beverly Cleary’s stories are filled with gentle humor, great comic timing and vivid scenes and characters. The second is Trina Schart Hyman. More than ten years ago, I fell in love with her illustrations of the folktale
Bearskin
. As Peter Glassman writes, “In her illustrations, we are introduced to a fairy-tale kingdom in which people of different races live, love, work and play together.” I share the vision that we all belong to the human race. To see that vision reflected in a children’s book was very powerful for me.

Sue Stauffacher lives with her husband and sons in a 150-plus-year-old farmhouse in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Over the years, possums, bats, raccoons, mice, squirrels, crows, ducks, woodchucks, chipmunks, voles, skunks, bunnies and a whole bunch of other critters have lived on the property. Though Sue is not a rehabilitator herself, she is passionate about helping kids know what to do when the wild meets the child.

Sue’s novels for young readers include
Harry Sue, Donutheart
and
Donuthead
, which
Kirkus Reviews
called “touching, funny, and gloriously human” in a starred review. Her most recent picture book,
Nothing but Trouble
, won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature. Besides writing children’s books, Sue is a frequent visitor to schools as a speaker and literacy consultant, drawing on two decades of experience as a journalist, educator and program administrator. To learn more about Sue and her books, visit her on the Web at
www.suestauffacher.com
.