Near the end of Sterling North’s Rascal, Sterling and his aunt Lillie discuss what Sterling might want to be when he grows up. Aunt Lillie thinks Sterling’s deceased mother would have wanted him to be a writer. When he asks why, she says; “And then you could put it all down, the way it is now. . . You could keep it just like this forever.”
That is just what North has done. He has preserved for us a snapshot of life in an American World War I-era small town. I am writing this almost exactly 100 years after the events in this book. Daily life for Americans has changed more in those 100 years than for any people at any other time in world history. There are references throughout the story to activities and objects that were familiar to most people in 1918 America, but will be unfamiliar to most of today’s young readers. Finding out about some of these things will give you a better picture of the time in which Sterling grew up. We should learn from everything we read, but we don’t want to analyze the enjoyment out of his story.
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