The bloggers over at weloveyouso.com put together a list of the Top 10 Rascals in Literature, as follows:
1. Max (Where the Wild Things Are)
2. Curious George (from H.A. Rey’s Curious George series)
3. Huck Finn (Mark Twain’sAdventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn)
4. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking books)
5. Scout Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird)
6. Oliver Twist (Dickens’ Oliver Twist)
7. Ramona Quimby (Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books)
8. Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye)
9. Brer Rabbit (Joel Chandler Harris’ Brer Rabbit books)
10. Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy books)
It’s a pretty spot-on list, by my calculations, though I would definitely argue that Holden Caulfield doesn’t belong on there - he was too old, and too serious and too sad. I think we need Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox on there for sure - as a child I delighted in the brazen way he thumbed his nose at the three beastly farmers.
What about Richmal Compton’s Just William? That kid from Wild Things is no rascal. Oliver Twist is no rascal - he was a starving orphan abused by thieves and the Poor House boss.
I haven’t read all the books of the authors mentioned in your post, but I am a fan of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.