The Growing Season: Raccoon Rescue by Kama Einhorn

These woods are wide and wet and wild. These woods are soft and green and mossy. And now these woods are our new home.

We knew exactly what to do when we got here, even though we're only twenty weeks old. Here we are living where we were supposed to live all along.

Four helpless baby raccoons, each no bigger than a lemon, are discovered abandoned in a hollow tree. Kind human hands lift them out of their nest and they are transferred to just the right place for such orphans, an animal rescue center called WildCare. A kind raccoon specialist named Shelly takes them under her wing.

Feeding comes first, for the little raccoons have been alone for three days. But first Shelly paints their toenails four different colors, Flashy Fuschia, Blue Me Away, Orange Zest, and High Line Green. Since the tiny babies looks so much alike at this stage, Shelly must know which is which as they are cleaned and fed bottles in matching colors. Carefully weighed and bottle-fed every two hours, the little orphans begin to thrive, gaining weight and settling in to life in the baby raccoon nursery.

"I, Mr. Green, have always been very clever. I was the first to figure out how to use the nipple on the bottle, and, later, how to use a lot of our toys."

With the largest of the four, Mr. Blue, leading the way, the little rescue raccoons grow fast,  mastering all sorts of foods, from fruit to acorns to crayfish (after all, they are omnivorous, just like their human caretakers), and by the time the youngsters are about five months old, they are ready for Mr. Blue to lead them into the woods where a pond awaits them with all kinds of delicious goodies and games.

Big Mr. Blue seems seriously ready to disappear into the woods right away. Two others follow quickly. But Mr. Green is more reserved about following.

"I was the last one to disappear into the wild.

Shelly called up to us in our tree. "You know what to do!" she said. About one second later, we turned all our attention to dinner. And so the forest feasting began."

With their manual dexterity, their omnivorous diet, and considerable intelligence, North American raccoons have spread over much of the globe. That success has made them prone to injuries and also likely to become urban problems, which is where animal rescue and relocation centers come in, raising lost babies, helping hurt adults, and finding them safe homes in wild areas. Kama Einhorn's just published Raccoon Rescue (True Tales of Rescue) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019), amply illustrated with adorable color photos, offers elementary readers a close look at the fun and serious work that goes into raising wild animals to return successfully to their native environments. Readers will enjoy the funny situations that baby raccoons get into as they learn about raccoon's natural behaviors that make them so successful as North American wildlife. Author Einhorn offers an appendix--an author's note, index, and glossary, and advice on how to help her favorite animals life with humans safely--which makes this a great source for animal science reports. "Raccoons Rule," is the word for this book!