Special Delivery! (15 page)

Dear Readers,

In honor of this book, my German shepherd mix, Sophie, got sprayed by a skunk she found in our yard. Ugh. It is a hard smell to describe. Add one cup of burning wood to one cup of rotten garbage to two cups of rotten egg and you’ll be getting close. After trying lots of homemade recipes (which all worked a little), we went to the pet store and got an odor-neutralizing product. That was the best thing.

Two crow families also decided to build nests in our yard and raise their young while I was writing this book. I know because Mama and Papa Bird got hopping mad when I walked anywhere near that part of the yard, flapping their wings and cawing like crazy. It was fun to watch the baby crows get big and practice flying, but I don’t know about living next door to them. They are noisy neighbors.

Another thing writers say to each other is “Write what you know.” Believe me, I know skunks and crows!

Happy Reading!
Sue

Acknowledgments

I want to thank all my readers on the Animal Rescue Team for spreading the word about how to keep wild animals wild and safe. I also want to thank the educators who help us learn by sharing their knowledge on the Web. For example, Kevin McGowan is a behavioral ecologist at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. He has studied crows for twenty years and shares his findings with us at
www.birds.cornell.edu/crows
. Thank you, Kevin! Another of my favorite Web sites for helping kids know what to do when they encounter wildlife in their own backyard is the Humane Society’s Wild Neighbors page:
www.hsus.org/wildlife/urban_wildlife_our_wild_neighbors
.

Most of all, a big thank-you to the wildlife rehabilitators themselves. These dedicated professionals work long hours to help animals in need. To find a good wildlife rehabilitator in your area, you can contact your state’s department of natural resources office or your local zoo, veterinarian or animal shelter.

About the Author

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 Literary Work—Children. 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
.

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2010 by Sue Stauffacher
Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Priscilla Lamont

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stauffacher, Sue.
Special delivery! / by Sue Stauffacher; illustrated by Priscilla Lamont. — 1st ed.
      p. cm. — (Animal Rescue Team)
Summary: Ten-year-old Keisha and her family’s animal rescue center face more challenges involving a baby crow in a mailbox and a skunk found in the nearby community garden.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89540-1
[1. Skunks—Fiction. 2. Crows—Fiction. 3. Animal rescue—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. Racially mixed people—Fiction.] I. Lamont, Priscilla, ill.
II. Title.
PZ7.S8055Spe 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2009023174

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