Benjy Meets Some Wild Animals; Summertime in the Country With Granny and Grandpa by Heidi Schultz. Illustrated by Katrina Nevin. Tisbury Printer.

This charming little book about an eight-year-old city boy’s adventures in the country, written by 91-year-old Heidi Shultz of West Tisbury is, according to its author, for seven to 10-year-olds (or younger children if it’s read to them). Adults will surely enjoy it, too, however, and probably learn things they didn’t know about creatures of the wild.

It’s perfectly safe, for example, to pick up a skunk as long as you make sure to hold its tail down ­— and run away as soon as you let go of the tail. Painted turtles like to sun on logs or stumps. Their bottom shell is bright yellow and their sides are black and bright red. A mother grouse puffs up her tail like a fan and hisses at any creature she thinks will endanger her young.

Benjy is not at all sure that he wants to spend the summer far out in the country with his grandparents, and is a little fearful of what he may encounter.

“Do hens have teeth and are they likely to bite?” he nervously asks his father as the pair set out for the country. But, of course, by summer’s end, after he has befriended a goat, seen the damage a porcupine can do to a dog, encountered a bear family, and captured a raccoon in a rope “snake-catcher” he had devised, he’s changed his mind.

Both the author and her late husband, Ronnee Schultz, to whom she dedicates her book, had grandchildren. Heidi, however, denies that she and Ronnee are the prototypes for Granny and Grandpa. And that may be true since Granny serves bacon and eggs or pancakes for breakfast each morning and is a roly-poly sort, while 91-year-old Heidi stays thin vigorously playing the cello with the Sinfonietta at Island musical gatherings.

There will be a book launch party on Saturday, Dec. 15 from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the West Tisbury Public Library.