QUEENS — Mr. Rocky Books is done with reading.
The raccoon that took shelter at a Queens library during Hurricane Sandy is leaving his temporary home to be returned to the wilds of South Jamaica.
The raccoon “found his way into the trap sometime last night,” Joanne King, communications director for the Queens Library system, said on Thursday morning.
The animal was to be released a few blocks from the library Thursday, she said.
“The assumption is that he has a burrow somewhere in the neighborhood and will find his way home to his raccoon family,” King said.
Neighborhood volunteers discovered the animal hiding under a shrub in the atrium of the Queens Library at Baisley Park in South Jamaica when they came to clean up after the storm. It remains unclear how the raccoon got into the atrium.
The animal has become a favorite among the library's children, who nicknamed him "Mr. Rocky Books," built him a cardboard-box home, and have been reading him books through a window separating the library from the atrium.
Last week, the library called in an expert who set up a trap in the atrium so that the animal could be safely removed and released.