Rascal

I read this as a kid & didn't really appreciate it since it was pretty much like my own childhood in many ways, even though mine took place about 50 years later. Reading it now, in this age of child repression, helicopter parents, & restrictive laws is both a treat & terribly sad. My grandson will n......more

One pleasant afternoon in 1918, eleven-year-old Sterling North, along with his Saint Bernard, Wowser, and friend, Oscar Sunderland, were in Wentworth’s woods. There, in the hollow base of a rotten stump, hid a mother raccoon and her litter of four kits. Angered and frightened by Wowser’s intrusive d......more

"Rascal" is an American classic, telling the story of how the boy Sterling found a little raccoon in the spring of 1818, and took him on as a pet. While it took me a while to get into, due to the very old language style, and the fact that an adult was writing down memories of his childhood - therefo......more

Nothing I could write could begin to touch Jeanette's wonderful review of this book...so I shall re-direct you to that.... [URL not allowed] I would just add that for those of us who find it unpleasant - there is quite a lot about fishing in this memoir.......more

Dad and kids both liked this beautiful book. Warm, rich, kind, interesting. Historical, instructive, a time-traveling machine. Kept kids quiet. Kept Dad coming back for more. There were inequities and wickednesses happening in that America; but there were beauties, too, beauties that only an untamed......more