The Dutton Animal Book Award is given annually for the best work of fiction or non-fiction relating to animals. The first winner Sterling North's authentic memoir, Rascal, is a happy and heart-warming choice—it's hero, a completely disarming raccoon; the period, that far off time just at the end of World War I.

Rascal, "a furry ball of utter dependence and awakening curiosity, unweaned and defenseless," was discovered by the 11-year-old Sterling's Saint Bernard late one May afternoon in the base of a hollow stump. Sterling, living with his absentminded father in a household that already boasted a pet crow, four skunks, woodchucks, cats, a Saint Bernard, and half a completed 18-foot canoe in the living room, didn't encounter the normal objections that a mother might have raised to the introduction of a wild raccoon into the family. Before long Rascal had joined Sterling and his father at the breakfast table where in true raccoon fashion, he tried vainly to wash his sugar lump before eating it. Soon the boy and his raccoon were inserparable. Racing down hills in the basket of Sterling's bicycle, Rascal, with the natural black goggles circling his bright eyes, looked exactly like Barney Oldfield. Together they swam in the cold waters of Lake Koshkonong and fished the nearby streams. So began Rascal's and Sterling's days together—days of fun, deepening awareness, and wonderful adventures that lasted a full year until that inevitable day in May when Rascal first heard the soft trill of a female raccoon in the woods.

A warm, nostalgic story in the fine tradition of Sterling North's great bestseller, So Dear to My Heart, Rascal lovingly recalls a young boy's life in a small midwest town at the close of World War I—a life full of the outdoors, of a motherless child's tender affection for his pets, of self-reliance and strong family ties, of the special excitement at vacation time, country fairs, and Christmas. But best of all it introduces Rascal, a little raccoon who is certain to take his place among literature's most captivating animals. 

From the dust jacket