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Shark in the Park

Illustrated by Sara Cristofori
Book #2 of Squirlish

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About The Book

Cordelia and the squirrel prince embark on a quest to find a lost treasure in this thrilling second installment of the “sweet and silly” (Booklist) Squirlish series perfect for fans of Sophie Mouse and Critter Club!

Can there really be a shark in Central Park?

Cordelia is a human girl raised by squirrels in Central Park. She’s famous among the squirrels, but it’s still a surprise when the squirrel queen summons her to Belvedere Castle. The queen wants Cordelia to protect the shark-obsessed Prince Oliver as he goes on a quest to find the missing Royal Scepter.

But Cordelia and Oliver soon run into trouble. This is the first time Oliver has left the castle, and he is super excited. He ignores the dangers lurking everywhere, from skateboarders to super-slippery slides—to a scheming pirate! And the prince would much rather find a shark than a scepter. Can Cordelia even keep up with him, let alone keep him safe?

Will Cordelia get the prince to complete his mission and deliver him back to Belvedere Castle in one piece?

Excerpt

 1 George the Lobster Hat

 

  Plink, plunk! Plink, plink, plunk!

  Cordelia woke up that morning to the sound of acorns hitting her tree house. The tree house was perched high up in an elm tree in the middle of Central Park. She lived there with a squirrel named Shakespeare. He had found her under a shrub when she was a baby, and he had raised her as his own.

  Cordelia squinted her eyes open—first one, then the other. She sat up and peeked out of the little tree house window. On the grassy lawn below, she saw her friend Isaac. He smiled and waved up at her.

  “Want to play Gorilla Kickball?” Isaac called up.

  “Be right down!” Cordelia called back.

  She scrambled out of the tree house, leapt down to a lower limb, and skipped along the branch as nimbly as… well, as nimbly as a squirrel, until she reached a large hole in the trunk. That was where she kept all her stuff. Some of it were things that Viola Berry, the park’s groundskeeper, had bought for her, like boots and a puffer jacket and a knit hat and lots of books about animals. Some other things she had found in the playground. People were always leaving interesting things in playgrounds, like plastic-bead bracelets and half-used bottles of soap bubbles and a little man made of LEGO bricks. Cordelia chose her clothes for the day and her favorite bead bracelet, and after she got dressed, she went to peek at Shakespeare. He was curled up in his nest in the tree, his bushy tail covering his eyes.

 

   

 

“Are you sleeping?” she whispered.

  Shakespeare let out a big snore.

  “That’s a fake snore,” she said, lifting his tail off his eyes.

   

  “It was a real snore a second ago before you woke me up,” he replied.

  “I’m going to play Gorilla Kickball with Isaac.”

  “Are the gorillas the quiet kind of gorillas?” Shakespeare asked.

  Cordelia laughed. “There are no gorillas, Shakespeare.”

  She gently placed his tail over his eyes again.

  She climbed down to the last branch and made a springy leap to the ground, landing squarely on her feet.

  “I call Gorilla!” she said.

  Gorilla Kickball was a game she and Isaac had made up. It involved a lot of running and tumbling and hiding and a soccer ball.

  They were having a great time, racing around and rolling in the grass, when suddenly Cordelia felt an acorn plop on her head. She looked up to see Kate, a small red squirrel, glaring down at her from a tree branch.

  Uh-oh.

  “I’ll never understand how you can run around on those ridiculous legs of yours, Cordelia,” Kate said. “They look like Popsicle sticks.”

   

  Cordelia ignored her.

  “You might act like a squirrel, Cordelia,” Kate continued. “And you might live in a tree like a squirrel, but super guess what…? You’re not a squirrel!”

  “I’m squirlish,” Cordelia shot back.

  Shakespeare always told her that she was a little bit squirrel and a little bit girl. That made her squirlish.

  “People visit Central Park, they don’t live in Central Park. You don’t belong here, Popsicle Stick Legs.” Kate flicked her tail at Cordelia.

  Cordelia’s stomach started to feel blurggy, which is when you feel like you’ve eaten something that doesn’t agree with you, only you haven’t. Cordelia ran to her elm tree and climbed back up to the hole in the trunk. She reached into the hole and pulled out a hat shaped like a lobster. It was bright red with dangly lobster claws that hung down by her ears.

  “Good morning, George,” Cordelia said to the hat, and she put it on her head. Then she told the hat what Kate had just said to her.

  “What are you doing?” Isaac called up to Cordelia.

  “Talking to George.” She pointed up at her lobster hat.

  “Why are you talking to a hat?” Isaac asked.

  “Shakespeare said that whenever I feel worried, I should tell the worry to George and let him worry about it instead.”

  “Oh.” Isaac nodded. “Does it work?”

  Cordelia thought about it. Her stomach didn’t feel so blurggy anymore. Just a little blurggy.

  “It mostly works,” she said. “I think George always leaves a tiny bit of the worry for me.”

  She climbed back down to the ground just as Fenton the rat came running up to them.

  “How do I look?” Fenton asked. He spit on his paws and groomed his whiskers.

  “What did he say?” Isaac asked Cordelia.

  Fenton was speaking in Chittering, which is the language squirrels speak. Even though Fenton was a rat, he hung around squirrels so much that he spoke it fluently.

  “He wants to know how he looks,” Cordelia translated.

  “Oh! I’ll tell him!” Isaac knelt down in front of Fenton. Cordelia was teaching Isaac how to speak in Chittering, and he took every opportunity to practice.

   

  “You look very handsome,” Isaac said to Fenton in Chittering.

  Except Isaac’s Chittering was not very good. What Isaac actually said was “You look like a furry onion dumpster.”

  Fenton made an unhappy squeak. “I do?”

  “He didn’t mean that,” Cordelia said. “But why do you care what you look like all of a sudden?”

  “Because of them.” He pointed.

  Trotting on the footpath were four large white rats. Sitting on the back of each rat, riding them like ponies, were very noble-looking squirrels. They were the queen’s Royal Messengers, and it looked like they were heading straight toward Cordelia.

 

   

About The Author

Photo courtesy of the author
Ellen Potter

Ellen Potter is the author of more than twenty award-winning novels for children and young adults, including the Squirlish series, the Hither & Nigh series, Olivia Kidney, Slob, the Big Foot and Little Foot series, the Piper Green and the Fairy Tree series, The Humming Room, Pish Posh, and The Kneebone Boy. Several of her books have been chosen by the New York Public Library for their Best 100 Books for Children list and have appeared on numerous state reading lists. Her nonfiction writing book, Spilling Ink, A Young Writer’s Handbook, coauthored with Anne Mazer, was also chosen by the New York Public Library as a Best 100 Books for Children. Ellen lives in upstate New York with her family. For more information about Ellen and her books, visit EllenPotter.com.

About The Illustrator

Sara Cristofori

Sara Cristofori is a writer and an illustrator based in the UK. She grew up in Italy, and her background studies comprise digital art, comics, fashion, and jewelry design. Nowadays, she is busy writing and illustrating books for kids, middle grade readers, and young adults. In her spare time, when she is not watching cartoons with her daughter, she is passionate about history and ethology.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books (July 9, 2024)
  • Length: 112 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781665926782
  • Ages: 6 - 9

Raves and Reviews

"Fantastical, funny, and charming."

– Kirkus Reviews, 5/15/2024

The continuing adventures of Cordelia, a young girl raised by a squirrel after she was abandoned in Central Park as a baby.

Cordelia considers herself “squirlish”: “a little bit squirrel and a little bit girl.” Though she speaks Chittering (the language of squirrels), moves nimbly through the trees, and lives in a snug treehouse in an old elm, she wears clothes supplied by a kindly groundskeeper and has human friends. Sometimes her stomach gets “blurggy” at the thought that she doesn’t really belong. Summoned to Belvedere Castle by Queen Isabel, Cordelia initially worries that the squirrel leader is planning to banish her. But Queen Isabel instead instructs Cordelia to accompany Prince Oliver on his quest for the long-lost Royal Scepter. This won’t be easy, since the young squirrel prince cares little for the scepter; all he can think about is sharks. Prince Oliver peppers Cordelia with shark questions, constantly drops his crown, and generally causes havoc. This fast-paced tale features delightful, inventive language, complemented by Cristofori’s energetic cartoons. As in the previous series installment, Central Park feels like a major character, along with New York City itself. A noteworthy scene at the Museum of Natural History sees Cordelia and Oliver learning about Seneca Village, a 19th-century African American community that was displaced when the park was built. The characters are quirky, and readers will cheer for Cordelia—and laugh out loud often. Cordelia presents white.

Fantastical, funny, and charming. (map of Central Park) (Fantasy. 7-10)

– Kirkus Reviews, 5/15/2024

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