Oh, Rats! by Tor Seidler (English) Paperback Book

Description: Oh, Rats! by Tor Seidler, Gabriel Evans "A New Jersey squirrel named Phoenix teams up with a pack of rats in New York City to save their riverside home from being demolished and turned into a high-rise"-- FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description "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, hes 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, hes one of the most sought-after squirrels in New Jersey--which makes his kidnapping by hawk even more dramatic. Luckily, the hawk doesnt 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, its not a pack of sewer rats that find him (theyre 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. Author Biography Tor Seidler is the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of more than a dozen childrens books, including Firstborn, The Wainscott Weasel, A Rats Tale, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Gullys Travels, and most notably Mean Margaret, which was a National Book Award Finalist. He lives in New York, New York. Gabriel Evans is a childrens book illustrator and author from Western Australia. He grew up wanting to be a train driver (for the hat), a circus master (for the moustache), or a childrens book illustrator (to read picture books all day). He has since illustrated many books, two of which were Notable Books for the Childrens Book Council of Australias Book of the Year. Gabriel runs workshops and talks in schools and libraries around Australia. Learn more at GabrielEvansArtist.com. Excerpt from Book Oh, Rats! 1 PURPLE BERRIES PHOENIX WOKE UP EARLY AND decided to go look for some food. Hed actually never ventured out of the nest, which was in a hole about a third of the way up a pine tree, but he had poked his head out to watch his parents go foraging. They descended the tree headfirst, so he assumed this was how it was done. But when he got out onto the bark and turned that way, he started trembling, and his left whiskers twitched uncontrollably. He turned himself the other way. The trembling and twitching stopped. He supposed he could descend tailfirst, but that struck him as ignominious. Might there be tasty seeds in some of those pine cones up the tree? He started to climb--and found he was a natural at it. But the higher he went, the skinnier the pine got. And the bark grew smoother, harder to grip. Then, to make matters worse, the tree began swaying--more than those around it. Phoenix looked up and saw why. Their pine poked above the others, exposing it more to the wind. But this wasnt necessarily all bad. The topmost pine cones looked within easy reach, and there was something appealing in the idea of being above everyone else. But on his final push he made the rookie mistake of looking down. A few weeks ago, as a newborn, hed clung to his nursing mother, but that was nothing compared to how he clung to the skinny tree now. The needle-strewn ground was so far away! However, the wind gradually died down, and as the tree grew more stable, his panic turned to disgust. What kind of tree squirrel was afraid of heights? He lifted his eyes and edged upward. Once perched on the highest branch, he was so pleased with himself that he even forgot he was hungry. What a view! Beyond the woods to the west was a town with buildings and steeples even higher than his pine. To the south, ponds and wetlands glimmered in the morning sun. Rising out of a newly planted cornfield to the north were giant towers carrying power lines on their steel shoulders. To the east, toward the sun, a bridge crossed a boat-speckled bay to a spit of land crowded with beach houses. Beyond that, an endless, silvery sea. "Phoenix!" Phoenix looked down again, but this time only three branches down. There was his father, Rupert, looking very stern--or trying to, anyway. Phoenix had assumed his family was asleep when hed slipped out of the nest, but in fact his father had seen him. However, Rupert had done nothing to stop him. For much of March and all of April hed dragged food home for the kits. Now that it was May he figured it was high time they got out and foraged for themselves. But then his mate had woken up, noticed a head missing, and had a fit. "Get down here!" Rupert said. Phoenix gulped and started a pathetic, tail-first descent. When he followed his father back into the nest, his mother gasped with relief. "I thought you might have fallen out and broken your skull!" she cried. "Hardly," Rupert said. "He went all the way to the top." "What! Phoenix, youre only ten weeks old!" "Were very disappointed in you," said Rupert. "You could have been picked off up there. Remember what we told you about birds of prey?" Phoenixs brothers sniffed reprovingly, but Phoenix didnt mind. Though his father said he was disappointed in him, the gleam in his eyes said otherwise. As the weeks went by, it became clear that Phoenix was the pick of the litter. He was the biggest of the bunch, with the most lustrous fur--a luminous golden-brown on his back, pure white on his belly--and by far the bushiest tail. He was the most venturesome, too, and was first to move out and find a hole of his own. It was only a few trees away. Squirrels generally spend their lives within a mile or two of where theyre born. So he still saw a good deal of his family, often going to forage with his father. The central part of their woods was mostly pines, but the outer fringes had lots of oaks and walnuts and hickories. Rupert got a kick out of showing him which nuts and acorns were best and how to cache them cleverly so birds and chipmunks wouldnt find them. Phoenix also became quite popular with his sisters girlfriends. He considered most of them empty-headed, but one named Giselle made an impression on him. She had an adorable white blaze on her snout and was always carrying on about a young squirrel named Tyrone, whom Phoenix took an instinctive dislike to. Tyrone was reputed to live in a stump in the north end of the woods, and one day when Phoenix was poking around for food in that vicinity, they crossed paths. To his dismay, Tyrones fur was every bit as shiny as his. His tail might have been even bushier. "Huh," Tyrone said after they introduced themselves. "I always thought Phoenix was a girls name." Phoenixs fur prickled. "You live in a stump?" he said. "Only when Im slumming in the woods," Tyrone said. Phoenix wasnt sure what this meant, but the next time he ran into his sisters crew, Giselle explained that Tyrone had a second home. "The attic of a house in town," she said. "Guess what he does there!" "What?" Phoenix said unenthusiastically. "Shinnies down a rain gutter at night and raids the humans pantry! You wouldnt believe the cool stuff he brings back. Ever had golden raisins? Or smoked almonds? Last time he brought back red licorice!" Phoenix had never had golden raisins, smoked almonds, or red licorice. In fact, hed never seen a human. When he mentioned this to his father, Rupert assured him he hadnt missed anything. "Tyrone raids their pantry," Phoenix complained. "Is Tyrone a rat?" "Hes a squirrel, my age. Whats a rat?" "You dont want to know." Phoenix did want to know. It bruised his self-esteem to have such gaping holes in his knowledge. He kept pestering his father until one day Rupert, who loved a good laugh, stopped by Phoenixs tree and called up, "How about a little sightseeing, son?" If no one was around, Phoenix climbed down his tree rump-first, but with his father watching he used a technique hed been perfecting of going round and round the trunk at a slight downward angle. When he reached the pine straw, he explained that hed been checking the bark for caterpillars. Rupert, amused, led him out the west end of the woods into a dry meadow. This provided more amusement. It was a minefield of whirring grasshoppers that kept making Phoenix jump. Beyond the meadow was a road. "Hilliard Boulevard," Rupert told him. As Phoenix reached out to test Hilliard Boulevards ominously black surface with a paw, Rupert yanked him backward. There was a terrifying roar as something enormous whooshed by in a blur. "See it?" Rupert asked. "What?" "The human." "That was a human?" Phoenix couldnt believe how huge the humans were, and how fast. But Rupert explained that the human was inside the contraption. When another similar contraption roared by, Phoenix again missed seeing the human inside. "What are they doing in those things?" he asked. "Trying to squash us," Rupert explained. "What do you mean?" After scanning the sky for birds of prey, Rupert led him along the side of the road till they came to a grayish stain on the pavement. Only when Phoenix made out the ringed tail attached to it did he realize it was the remains of a raccoon. "Do the humans do that to squirrels, too?" he asked, appalled. "Ask your great-aunt Flo," Rupert said with a sigh. "Sweet as the day is long, Uncle Frank was." Phoenixs great-aunt Flo was a legendary figure in the woods, so wise that squirrels made pilgrimages up her white birch to ask her advice. But this was the first Phoenix had heard about her flattened mate. Gruesome as it was to think of, it only intensified his desire to see what these human assassins looked like. Rupert climbed a fencepost, looked both ways, and hopped back down. After scanning the sky, he gave a nod, and the two of them dashed across Hilliard Boulevard. On the other side they made their way along the shoulder, weaving through thistles and milkweed and trash. Soon another road crossed the first--another Hilliard Boulevard, Phoenix assumed. They turned right and pattered along underneath a hedge as sparrows and wrens twittered overhead. The hedge ended at a third Hilliard Boulevard. This one was square-shaped and full of the monstrous killing machines, though here they were parked diagonally and were mercifully standing still. Giving them a wide berth, Phoenix and his father started across a stretch of grass where every blade had been chewed down to exactly the same length. There wasnt a deer in sight, but there must have been scads around. The two squirrels stopped at a chain-link fence that separated them from the most horrifying creatures Phoenix had ever seen. Some were splashing around in a square pond. Others were lolling on the grass. "Humans?" he asked in a hushed voice. "Their watering hole," Rupert said. The humans were not easy on the eye. They had no tails at all, and some dreadful diseas Details ISBN153442685X Language English Illustrator Gabriel Evans ISBN-10 153442685X ISBN-13 9781534426856 Format Paperback Pages 336 Publisher Atheneum Books Imprint Atheneum Books Audience Age 8-12 Edition Description Reprint ed. DEWEY FIC Audience Children / Juvenile Author Gabriel Evans Year 2020 Publication Date 2020-08-25 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:137965376;

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