# Rascal

**Author:** Sterling North
**Grade range:** Grades 5–8
**Age range:** 10–13
**First published:** 1963
**Page count:** 210
**Genre:** Middle Grade Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9781101660492`
**ISBN-10:** `0140344454`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/rascal
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Sterling North's Newbery Honor memoir recounts a year of his small-town Wisconsin boyhood in 1918, when he raised an orphaned baby raccoon named Rascal. As the mischievous, ever-growing raccoon shares his bedroom, his bicycle basket, and his adventures, North captures both the freedom of a rural childhood and the bittersweet moment when a wild animal must be returned to the wild.

## Themes

- nature
- animals
- family
- growing up
- perseverance

## Where this book is assigned

### Oklahoma Sequoyah Children's Book Award

- **recommended** · 5th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 6th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 7th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 8th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)

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