Rascal: Running for His Life

by Chris Cooper, James de la Rue (Illustrator)

Rascal is lost and frightened, far away from his owner and best friend Joel. Then he’s rescued from dog catchers by Lucas, a boy who’s also running from bullies. Can Rascal be brave, and show Lucas how to stand up for himself?

144 pages, Paperback

First published November 28, 2002

Reviews

[Adele Broadbent · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 3rd book in this series

(Although I have labelled this Junior Fiction there are older issues in this book and a savage dog chasing Rascal. A gentle child might not like the bullying and the dog chasing Rascal.)

Rascal is tired. He’s been walking a long way in his search to get home to his owner, Joel. His paw is sore and when he recognises the nice people tempting him with food are in fact dog catchers, he’s not sure whether he will be able to escape them.

Just as he thinks they are going to catch him, a boy in the park claims him as his own. Rascal suddenly has a new friend and gets to repay the favour to the boy during this new adventure on his way home.

This story reminds me of a TV show called ‘The Littlelest Hobo’ about a dog having adventures and meeting new people on his journey home.

[Timothy Tilbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rascal is a long way from home. He’s lost and alone, far away from his owner Joel. But when a strange boy rescues him from two dog catchers, Rascal realises that he might not be the only one who needs a little help. This is a book that I really enjoyed reading its simple but very compelling. Rascal is a very believable character and despite the fact that he never speaks the reader is always completely aware of what is going on inside this dog’s head. Rascal is really easy to like and this definitely appeals to the reader, plus the story is easy to pick up; this is the first Rascal book I read but it’s actually the third in the series. It gives you enough information about Rascal’s situation that yo9u can pick up the story from this point with ease; essentially he is a lost dog trying to get back to his master. It shows the moral battles the dog has in his long journey, he must steal to eat but he knows it’s wrong and he fears the worst thing that can ever happen to a dog like him, someone calling him a “bad dog”, these moral decisions are reflected in the books human character Lucas, does he steal to stop the bullies form hurting him or does he stand up to them and try to do what’s right? This book has an additional appeal because the main character isn’t human, there’s something really interesting about seeing the world through the eyes of a dog I have used this book with year two and each time I read from the book I found the class completely transfixed in the story so I would defiantly recommend using it in key stage one.
I have managed to construct a whole terms worth of work out of this book, it’s quite easy to extract information out of for the constructing character profiles, and it also lends itself nicely to report writing which are things that are covered in the key stage 1 curriculum.