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I remember reading a book when I was a kid (age 7-9) about squirrels (or maybe other small animals) that were using the octal numeral system.

Counting to 7 (since 8 = 0) was a whole new magical world that opened for me back then, until I found out a bit later that this numeral system existed for real.

A quick search on the internet gave me nothing, but maybe you can help?

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    I vaguely remember something like this, and although I would have sworn they were badgers, I haven't had any more luck tracking it down than you have. – TML Aug 12 '11 at 9:59
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    You can see my age on my profile ;) And no, it was just a regular story about a group of animals (no cats sorry), living their life with their own mathematical (octal) system. – Bart Aug 13 '11 at 15:29
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    I'm so curious about this story. BOUNTY'D. – hairboat♦ Aug 24 '11 at 19:55
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    I don't remember illustrations, but it's been a long time. If it had them, they were a minimal part of the book I'm thinking of - it certainly wasn't "Dr. Seuss in the Magical Land of the Octal-counting Badgers." – TML Aug 24 '11 at 23:22
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    Someone has posted this query on Stump - A456: Anthropomorphic rodents (perhaps squirrels or badgers) who use a base 8 (0-7, or "octal") counting system – JoseK Sep 2 '11 at 13:00
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The question has been up on stump - A456 for over a month and got a new reply:

Tod, Michael, The Woodstock Saga, 1990s, approximate. The Woodstock Saga, also known as the Dorset Squirrels, is a series of three novels about a society of squirrels (the titles are The Silver Tide, The Second Wave and The Golden Flight). In the first book, the heroine squirrel develops a Base 8 system of counting inspired by the number of toes she has on her front paws. I hope this helps! :)

  • The name Michael Tod sounds familiar to me, so that's a +1.
  • It's about squirrels: +1
  • They have a Base 8 system: +1

Quite convinced that this is what we were looking for :)

These are the books:

Think I've read the 2nd one long ago, as soon as I'm back in the country, I'm gonna try and find all 3. Thanks a lot to the person that posted it on stump.

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    +1 It's great that this question is finally answered! :) – Daniel Oct 13 '11 at 23:36
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    Yeah, I remembered enjoying this book enough that I thought it would be well worth the $2 if that service could identify it for me, so I posted it to them the day after @Anna Lear's bounty expired; looks like it was a good decision! This is definitely the series I was thinking of (and kudos to Bart for getting the right kind of rodent the first time around!) I even remember the grey squirrels being the antagonists now. – TML Oct 14 '11 at 4:03
  • @TML thanks a lot ! And yeah, the grey squirrels ... so gonna buy the series when I get home again. – Bart Oct 14 '11 at 13:06

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