Rascal (book)

"Rascal" is an award-winning 1963 children's book by Sterling North about his childhood in Wisconsin.

Publication and awards

Rascal was published in 1963. The book is a remembrance of a year in his childhood during which he raised a baby raccoon named Rascal. It received a Newbery Honor in 1964, the Young Reader's Choice Award in 1966 [ [http://www.pnla.org/yrca/pastwinners.htm Young Reader's Choice Award] ] , and the Sequoyah Book Award in 1966. It was made into the Disney movie "Rascal" in 1969. Additionally, it was made into a 52-episode Japanese anime entitled "Araiguma Rasukaru".

Plot summary

Subtitled "a memoir of a better era," North's book is a prose poem to adolescent angst. "Rascal" chronicles young Sterling's loving, troubled relationship with his father, dreamer David Willard North, and the aching loss represented by the death of his mother, Elizabeth Nelson North. (The book also touches on young Sterling's concerns for his older brother Herschel, who is in Europe fighting in World War One). The boy reconnects with society through the unlikely intervention of his pet raccoon, a "ringtailed wonder" charmer that dominates almost every page. The book begins with the capture of the baby raccoon, and follows his growth to a yearling.

The story is also a personal chronicle of the era of change between the (nearly) untouched forest wilderness and agriculture; between the days of the pioneers and the rise of towns; and between horse-drawn transportation and automobiles, among other transitions. The author's through-a-boy's-eyes view of his observations during expeditions in and around his home town, contrasted with his father's reminiscences of the time "when Wisconsin was still half wilderness, when panthers sometimes looked in through the windows, and the whippoorwills called all night long", ["Rascal", chap. 3; there are also reminiscences about pioneer naturalist Thure Kumlien (1819-88).] provide a glimpse of the past, as the original subtitle suggests.

The book is filled with humorous moments. His sister Theo cannot understand Sterling's building of a canoe in the living room and is "startled nearly out of her wits" when Rascal, who had been lying on and blending into Uncle Justus' Amazonian jaguar rug, stands up. Later in the book, Rascal joins him in a pie eating contest, and they win, but are disqualified, although his friend, Oscar Sunderland, takes first prize because of it. Rascal also enjoyed riding in his bicycle's basket, and helped him sell magazines by creating an animated sideshow.

The book also has serious moments. The author's brother Herschel is serving in the military during World War I, and Sterling longs for a word from him. Rascal is confined after he bites an annoying lad who snaps him with a rubber band. Later, Sterling catches a mild case of the Spanish flu during the epidemic.

Eventually the problems with Rascal's raids into fields and henhouses become too much of an issue; the neighbors' irritation with the boy's pet can no longer be ignored. In addition, Rascal has become a young adult and, as such, is getting attention from jealous male and interested female raccoons. Sterling realizes that Rascal is a wild animal and can no longer be kept, unless always kept in a cage. He travels in the newly completed canoe to release Rascal in the woods at the far side of the nearby lake.

The author's sister, the strait-laced poet and art historian Jessica Nelson North, is one note of early 1900s normalcy in the book. She wasn't particularly pleased with how her brother portrayed her family in "Rascal" (yet was proud of her brother's achievement, regardless). Fact|date=November 2007

The Sterling North Museum

The setting of the book, their childhood home in Edgerton, Wisconsin (known as Brailsford Junction in the book), is preserved as a museum. The author's daughter, Arielle North Olson, a respected children's author in her own right, is an honorary director of the museum. [ [http://www.sterlingnorth.com/ The Sterling North Society and Museum] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.gojefferson.com/rascal/index.html goJefferson.com Rascal history site]
* [http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr%201=1016%20&query=trail&num=1&start=4&sortBy=cnum&sortOrder=id cylinders.library.ucsb.edu Edison cylinder recording of "There's a Long, Long Trail", Rascal's favorite song]