FIVE FAT RACCOONS

Readers get a glimpse of raccoon habits, especially eating habits, in this lightly fictionalized, no-plot account of a raccoon family--parents, uncle, brother, and sister--who wake up together in spring, find crayfish and snails and eggs and strawberries to eat (""they seemed to have just one thought--food!""), play in the water, and gorge happily on corn and apples before retiring again for the winter. Their corn feast, and the book, end on the run, as adventuresome Uncle Rocky Raccoon finally goes a bit too far and brings the farmer's dog down on the whole overstuffed family. Freschet's telling is light and colloquial, and there's a distinguishing sense of life in both the text and the russet-toned pictures.