Oh, Rats!

"A moving animal-fantasy kids will want to squirrel away for repeated reading." --Booklist (starred review)

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 "charming" (Kirkus Reviews) novel by National Book Award- nominated author Tor Seidler.

Phoenix is a pretty big deal in his neck of the woods: The largest 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.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Atheneum Books
Published: 08/25/2020
ISBN: 9781534426856
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.30w x 0.90d
Accelerated Reader Quiz #/Name: 503384 / Oh, Rats!
Reading Level: 6 / Interest Level: Middle Grade / Point Value: 9