Page 36 - SB-Chocolate Festival

The main character, Squiggy does not like the taste of chocolate and declines to participate in the Chocolate Festival. This is the only in the way he is different from the others in the squirrel colony.
This slight difference is enough to get a few of the others squirrels to come to some irrational conclusions; 1. He is trying to put a “curse” on the acorn crop 2. He is a friend of the hawks and will trick the other squirrels into destruction.
There is no indication that either belief is true but the other squirrels tended to believe them. As the “stinky thinking” of a few becomes accepted by the many, Squiggy is the focus of their fear and anger.
Those who see the foolishness of the claims are too timid to speak up or too fearful of being thought to be just like Squiggy. The consequences of this irrational thinking (prejudice) toward Squiggy are severe and he finally leaves the colony for his own safety. Unfortunately, rather than seeing the error in their thinking, the others see his leaving as justification for their irrational beliefs. The prejudicial thinking continues focusing on “wrong color” or tail length.
In our society and in the world as a whole, we witness the consequences of prejudice in the daily news stories. These consequences are real and terrible but they are just as irrational and unnecessary as those of this story. Our prejudices can be significant or trivial. They can have minor or terrible consequences.
They are all founded in irrational (stinky) thinking that we can learn to challenge. By teaching yourself to evaluate your thinking you weed out your prejudicial thinking. By helping others see and understand their irrational thinking, you can help them avoid being prejudice.
By learning this skill, you can be confident that irrational prejudices will never be a problem for you or those you care about.
33