FOUR FAT RATS

Four fat sassy rats leave home and eat a wide swathe through the world, alienating everybody on the way

PreSchool-Grade 3 These four fat rats are sassy, obstreperous, spontaneous, jolly, and delightful. Totally confident and totally oblivious to social convention, they explore the world around them, barging into nests, hutches, barns, and coops with the aplomb of entitlement. Their comeuppance occurs after they devour an entire blueberry pie and become so round that they cannot budge. The text has a terrific cadence for reading aloud or telling. It can stand alone, but is humorously enhanced by the pale watercolor and ink illustrations. Landscape scenes of forest and barnyard are calm and pastoral at first glance, but the range of expression on the creatures' faces is astonishing. The goofy, pop-eyed rats look so naive and simple-minded that readers can't help but wish them well. The placidity of the cows and the smoldering rage of the bull are unmistakable. Rats will be rats, and that is more than a little okay in this delightful book. Dana Whitney Pinizzotto, Dallas Public Library
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Four fat rats leave their parents' nest and eat their way into the world. By nightfall they try to find shelterin other animals' houses. They barge into a rabbit hole and start chewing on the furniture; they climb up the squirrels' treetop residence and look down on everybody; they appropriate the cows' red barn and pester the peaceful inhabitants of that place; and they invite themselves into a house, dress up as people and feast on the garbage bag. This odd but funny first book about blunt social climbers has no real resolutionit's little more than a shaggy-rat story. The watercolors show lodging places that are warm and hospitable, with decorous interiors, whimsical furnishings and urbane dwellers, but unfortunately, they don't offer much beyond what is written on the page, nor do they seem to work with the text to illuminate it. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.