Rascal

     I read about a book called Rascal for my Independent Reading. This book is a heartwarming, and very fun story to read. This book talks about a boy, Sterling North, which finds a baby raccoon and decides to raise it. The book is a true story of the author's past life, and the book is very interesting because we can see the major differences between the childhood of Sterling, versus the childhood of our own. This book moves us into the world of Sterling, and describes the bond between boy and raccoon very well.


    The book starts when Sterling is just a child. During that time, he was playing with his friend, when suddenly, they stumbled upon a raccoon den. All the other baby raccoons fled along with their mother, but one was too weak to walk. Sterling decides to keep the raccoon and name it Rascal. The beginning of the book starts with learning how to care for the raccoon. Sterling soon finds out that Rascal, the raccoon, is extremely intelligent. This is proven by the anecdote when Rascal found out about the sugar cube. This raccoon has a tendency to wash everything that it eats first in some liquid, and when Rascal was drinking milk, Sterling decided that giving him a sugar cube was a good idea. His father said yes, so he gave Rascal a sugar cube. Rascal then proceeded to wash the sugar cube, which by his surprise, completely disappeared into the milk. After 1 more try, he quickly learned not to rinse sugar cubes.

    However, when Sterling brought Rascal to school, the school bully decided to provoke Rascal, which ended in the bully getting bit. This was bad for Rascal, because then he would have to be caged. Rascal had always been free, so this was extremely hard to convert to this life. Rascal had already built up a bad reputation from the townspeople by eating the grapes from the neighbors yard, and Sterling decides to take Rascal out into one of his favorite places until he has to release Rascal into the wild.

   

Comments

  1. Kelby SvendsenFebruary 4, 2021 at 8:56 PM

    This book seems like it would be very entertaining! I think that any book that involves a pet racoon would be very exciting, but otherwise I think the concept of the bond between a pet and owner always provides a good book and the perspective of a boy that is based on a true story is very appealing as well.

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  2. Daniel TFebruary 7, 2021 at 4:16 PM

    This book seems like a great read. I always liked stories about the relationships between pets and their owners, and the bittersweet ending of this one seems interesting as well. While it does follow the typical plot of a boy taking in an lost animal, there are few cool twists here, such as it being based off of a true story, and the animal being racoon as opposed the the usual dog or cat as seen in other stories. Overall this book seems great.

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  3. ClaireMarch 7, 2021 at 9:34 AM

    This seems like an interesting and unique story. The fact that it's based on a true story makes it even more intriguing. Your description of the book as "heartwarming" sounds very accurate. I'll definitely check it out!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Maxwell HeMarch 26, 2021 at 12:50 PM

    Books about childhood are always interesting, and it is indeed heartwarming to see childrens' interactions with animals such as the pet raccoon you mention. I also find it extremely interesting to read about the development of an animal's intelligence as it learns more about the world. This seems like a very fun book to read!

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