Library Happenings

Henning School

As a young child I was always afraid of bats because my brothers would often tease me and convince me that the bats would end up getting stuck in my long hair. 

One night after attending a late baseball game we came home to find a bat in our house flying around.  My grandmother was there and she too was afraid of bats getting stuck in her hair! After listening to us complain my dad decided to get rid of any bats that could be in the attic of our house. This turned out to be a terrible mistake. From that point forward we did not have any bat troubles at all, but we did have the worst mosquito problem! 

I’ve had a different outlook on bats since that happened and now I just realize that they are busy eating up all the annoying mosquitoes and to just leave them alone and they’ll leave me alone.

With Halloween this weekend, the Henning Public School Library is featuring two books on bats.  

Our first featured book is entitled “Zipping, Zapping, Zooming Bats” and is written by Ann Earle.  This book is illustrated by Henry Cole. Earle informs us that bats can eat half of their weight in bugs in a night.  

In Bracken Cave located in Texas, there live 20 million Mexican free-tailed bats that consume 250 tons of insects each night. Because bats use high beeping sounds that go out in waves and hit objects around the bat, this allows them to tell what kind of insect is near to them. This is called echolocation. It could be a grasshopper, a moth, or a mosquito.  

Bats are excellent fliers.  Their wings are like webbed hands. Their clawed toes and thumbs allow them to easily hang upside down. Bats keep themselves very clean. Many bats hibernate, slowing their heart rate from 900 beats per minute to 20 beats per minute. This book features special direction on making a backyard bat house!

Book number two is titled “Outside and Inside Bats” by Sandra Markle. This book gives the reader excellent opportunities to visualize bats in their entire specific habitats. It features several different kinds of bats, one of which is the vampire bat. 

The vampire bat does not kill and eat its prey. Instead, the vampire bat will bite its prey and lap up the animal’s blood as it flows from the wound.  They can jump to get their prey and they can stand on their strong hind legs.  

If you want to know more about bats come on up to the Henning Public School Library and let us help you find one of our many books on bats.  We hope to see you on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 3:30-5:30 p.m. following the school calendar.