Four Fat Rats

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. (August)