Very short little book about how the author found an orphaned woodchuck and cared for it. She raised it in her house, then moved it to a hole outside by a stone wall on the property, then eventually had to trap and relocate it further away because it kept coming back for handouts! Getting the woodchuck to find and eat wild foods on its own seemed the hardest part. I often see woodchucks in the roadside verges here, and thought of them as just big fat ground squirrels. Which they are. But it was nice to learn a little more about them, and reflect on how beautiful the author eventually found them to be, in their own way. The middle of the book switches from the personal story about this one woodchuck, to share information the author learned via her library research, then it goes back to tell how the woodchuck was finally returned to the wild. The illustrations by Darby Morrell are just exquisite. ( )

A short, simple story, beautifully illustrated in great detail, of the author's rescuing of a baby woodchuck whose mother was dead. McNulty cares for "Chuck," researches woodchucks at the library, and rehomes him into the wild when it's time.

See also: Charlotte's Web by E.B. White ( )

This is a beginning chapter book with a few illustrations. I enjoyed the story because the woman in it handles the situation the best that she knows how and does further research when she needs more answers. I would have liked reading this as a fourth grader. ( )