Bannertail

A baby squirrel is adopted by a farm cat after his mother is killed, but when he is half-grown the barn which is his home catches fire. He flees into the woods, where he learns to survive and make a new life.

From the Foreword:

"These are the ideas that I have aimed to set forth in this tale.

1st. That although an animal is much helped by its mother's teaching, it owes still more to the racial teaching, which is instinct, and can make a success of life without its mother's guidance, if only it can live through the dangerous time of infancy and early life.

2d. Animals often are tempted into immorality—by which I mean, any habit or practice that would in its final working, tend to destroy the race. Nature has rigorous ways of dealing with such.

3d. Animals, like ourselves, must maintain ceaseless war against insect parasites—or perish.

4th. In the nut forests of America, practically every tree was planted by the Graysquirrel, or its kin. No squirrels, no nut-trees."

Bannertail: The Story of Gray Squirrel was produced by Nippon Animation in 1979. There are 26 episodes. The series was translated from Japanese into English, into German as Puschel, das Eichhorn, into Afrikaans as Pokkel die eekhoring into Arabic and into Spanish as "Banner y Flappy".

• Bannertail at Project Gutenberg
• Bannertail; the story of a gray squirrel at Faded Page (Canada)

• Bannertail public domain audiobook at LibriVox