Curse of the Squirrel

by Laurence Yep

From the time a giant squirrel curses Farmer Johnson's best hunting dog, things are never the same around the farm, and hunting little animals ceases to be a sport.

Genres: Fiction, Middle Grade

62 pages, Hardcover

First published September 12, 1987

About the author

Born June 14, 1948 in San Francisco, California, Yep was the son of Thomas Gim Yep and Franche Lee Yep. Franche Lee, her family's youngest child, was born in Ohio and raised in West Virginia where her family owned a Chinese laundry. Yep's father, Thomas, was born in China and came to America at the age of ten where he lived, not in Chinatown, but with an Irish friend in a white neighborhood. After troubling times during the Depression, he was able to open a grocery store in an African-American neighborhood. Growing up in San Francisco, Yep felt alienated. He was in his own words his neighborhood's "all-purpose Asian" and did not feel he had a culture of his own. Joanne Ryder, a children's book author, and Yep met and became friends during college while she was his editor. They later married and now live in San Francisco.

Although not living in Chinatown, Yep commuted to a parochial bilingual school there. Other students at the school, according to Yep, labeled him a "dumbbell Chinese" because he spoke only English. During high school he faced the white American culture for the first time. However, it was while attending high school that he started writing for a science fiction magazine, being paid one cent a word for his efforts. After two years at Marquette University, Yep transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he graduated in 1970 with a B.A. He continued on to earn a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1975. Today as well as writing, he has taught writing and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Santa Barbara.

Reviews

[Julie Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Curse of the Squirrel by Laurence Yep
Willie and Howard are brothers and the farmer wants to go hunting. Willie is scared and he is scared of the squirrels but the farmer wants to hunt them.
Howie leaves to go hunt the squirrel and does find him and his name is Shag. The squirrel bit him putting a curse on him. by day he will be a dog, at night he will be a squirrel.
The cabbages on the farm are stolen. The tracks look like a dogs print. Howie is acting like a squirrel, hoarding nuts and cabbages and eating the farmers peanut butter sandwiches.
Howie and Willie go together to the swamp to get rid of the curse...
The dogs know how to get rid of the squirrel and their trick does work. the farmer is amazed!
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).

[Emmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Total confession: I read this because Michael from Vsauce said it scared him as a child, and he was never able to finish it. So, of course, I had to see what the book was all about. I can definitely see this frightening a younger reader, but it's still tame enough to not scare them too badly. Older children, teens, and adults will probably not be scared at all.

The premise was very clever: a hunting dog has an encounter with a man-sized evil squirrel. That's even more information than I went into this reading with, and I think this is one where it's best to keep things slightly vague until you start reading.

After a bit of a slow start, I really sank my fangs into this one. I hope you'll enjoy it, too.

[Lúthien Tindomiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this when I was in elementary school, and it was so memorable that I looked it up on Goodreads as an adult so I could remember this to read to my kid one day. Was it genuinely spooky? Yes, it was. Was it funny? That too! Did it scare me as a kid? Yes, it surely did--and I absolutely loved it. Highly recommended for the kind of kid who seeks out the original versions of fairy tales and wants to dress as a witch for Halloween.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admire Laurence Yep and his historical novel, Dragons Gate (1995). When I stumbled across this short stepping stone book, I was excited to see it was a suspenseful fantasy chapter book. Fun silly (possibly scary?) story for your average 2nd grader or beginning 3rd grader. I think this would be a fun book to read in October during Halloween season. If you like dogs, live on a farm, or have squirrels in your neighborhood, even better!

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, this was strange. I bought it because of a VSAUCE video, and I love Michael -- plus that cover is very classic horror. But what the hell was this? I would've loved this as a kid, and at thirty... I kind of love it now. Massive, killer rodents, garlic and an odd anti-hunting message... I like?... I think.

[Ashish Jadhav]

here coz of michael from vsauce.

[Jakaree · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the book

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remembered this book from when I was a child, and just had to reread it! Just as great as I remembered it being.