Seidler, Tor.
A RAT’S TALE
New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2008
IL 3-6, RL 5.5
ISBN 0-74400318

Montague Mad-Rat lives in the sewers of New York.  He tends to be picked on by the other rats since his family is different.  His mother loves to make hats.  And his father only cares about making mud castles.   When Montague rescues a beautiful young she-rat, his life begins to change.  Isabel Moberly-Rat is nothing like anyone he has ever met.  She comes from the wealthy part of town on the wharf and has a very different outlook on life.  These rats look down on those who work with their paws like Montague and his family.  But the wharf rats are in trouble.  The person who owns the wharf has died and now the wharf is to be sold and the rats exterminated.  The rats had a deal with the previous owner.  The rats gathered up money and put it in a wheelbarrow and the owner left the rats alone.  Maybe they can get the new owner to leave them alone if they collect enough money.  When Montague donates his painted shells to the campaign to save the wharf, he is laughed at and he runs away humiliated.