There’s an Opossum in My Backyard

Gary Bogue, Illustrated by Chuck Todd

40 pages (8 x 10), full color throughout
Hardcover, ISBN: 978-1-59714-059-1, $15.95

A friendly opossum finds adventure in a family’s backyard.

A baby opossum falls off her mother’s back and finds herself in a strange new world—a suburban backyard. As the Green family and the opossum become acquainted with each other, the adventurous creature learns to sneak food from the dog bowl, avoid capture by an owl, and make friends with other wildlife along the way.

From the team who created the popular urban wildlife guide The Raccoon Next Door comes a story introducing one of California’s most adorable and intriguing critters.

Here are some opossum fun facts from the book:

• Opossums are the only marsupials native to North America.
• Nicknamed “the living fossil,” the opossum dates back to the days of the dinosaurs.
• A baby opossum is born just thirteen days after conception but lives in its mother’s pouch for another seven weeks.
• The opossum curls its tail around objects in order to stabilize itself (on its mother’s back or in trees) and also uses its tail to drag dry grasses and leaves to make its nest.
• Opossums pretend to play dead to dodge predators!