Oh, Rats!
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
When a hawk snatches up an adventurous squirrel named Phoenix, he’s ready to kiss his tail goodbye. But what should have been a death sentence becomes the beginning of a sweeping big-city adventure in this captivating novel by National Book Award–nominated author Tor Seidler.
Phoenix is a pretty big deal in his neck of the woods: The biggest in his litter with the most lustrous fur and by far the bushiest tail, he’s one of the most sought-after squirrels in New Jersey—which makes his kidnapping by hawk even more dramatic.
Luckily, the hawk doesn’t have the best grip. Unluckily, he drops Phoenix on a freshly-tarred street in downtown Manhattan. Now stripped of his gorgeous golden-brown coat, Phoenix looks like nothing more than a common sewer rat. Fortunately for Phoenix, it’s not a pack of sewer rats that find him (they’re a notoriously surly bunch), but rather wharf rats.
Taken in by siblings Lucy and Beckett, Phoenix is welcomed into a rat pack living in abandoned piers on the Hudson. But when they learn of plans to demolish the piers, Phoenix is swept up in a truly electrifying scheme to stop the humans from destroying his new friends’ home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Phoenix the squirrel is used to being "the pick of the litter... the biggest of the bunch, with the most lustrous fur." But after being snatched by a red-tailed hawk, haughty Phoenix finds himself battered and furless in Manhattan, far from his forest home in N.J. After being unceremoniously dropped in hot tar, then nearly drowned in the Hudson River, he is rescued by two wharf rat siblings: inquisitive Lucy and brainy Beckett. Though he initially holds some stereotypical opinions about rats, the squirrel, an excellent climber with a unique knowledge of electricity, soon finds himself center stage in the rats' battle against gentrification and the approaching demolition of their pier. Seidler (Firstborn) convincingly portrays rodent-human parallels; the rats' diverse community is passionately united as they fight to save their home, sabotaging electrical grids to raise awareness and sending strongly worded letters (written by Beckett) to voice their dissent. Soft black-and-white spot illustrations by Evans (the Little Paws series) add further charm to this animal adventure with direct social commentary. Ages 8 12.
