Raffie on the Run

December 15, 2017
A small rat with a big heart makes his way from Brooklyn to Central Park West to bring his little brother home.Raffie is a young rat who lives in Brooklyn's Bergen Street subway station with his family, and when his little brother, Oggie, is captured by a human boy for a school pet competition, Raffie, who loves nothing more than a good "aged" pizza, finds a clue in the boy's abandoned backpack. The problem: Raffie knows where he needs to go but not how to get there. Joined by Kaz, a claustrophobic pigeon who's lost half of one wing, Raffie goes on the adventure of a lifetime. He dodges broom-wielding humans, a flock of hostile pigeons, and a vicious dog. They hitch a ride in a limo whose sole occupant is the Paris Hilton of poodles: a vain reality star who's just come from a day at the spa. They also meet Walter, king of the cockroaches, and the flamboyant but not-too-friendly YouTube star Sparkle the Sassy Squirrel, who lands Raffie and Kaz in cages at animal control. Their dialogue-driven escape from captivity will launch readers quickly through to the happy ending. For all that he's a rat and has perfectly ratlike proclivities with regard to food, Raffie is both literate and a bit of a pedant, correcting the good-natured Kaz's grammar along the way.A great selection for readers in search of a fun animal fantasy. (Fantasy. 8-12)

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January 1, 2018
Grades 4-6 A Brooklyn subway rat scampers to the rescue after his worshipful little brother Oggie is trapped by a fifth-grader for a class pet competition. Having only the address of a (fictional) school on Central Park West to go by (the trapper conveniently left his backpack behind), Raffie screws his courage to the sticking place and sets out into a wide and scary world filled, it turns out, with both deadly dangers and mouth-watering garbage. Fortunately, he gets plenty of help along the way from Kaz, a pigeon with a malformed wing but an unerring homing instinct. In keeping with The Cricket in Times Square (1960) motif, Raffie's Big Apple experience includes a stint on a tourist bus as well as encounters with urban wildlife of diverse classes and characters, plus narrow escapes from animal control and other hazards. The animal figures in Sutphin's line drawings glow with human expressions and character, and to orient non-New York readers, he tucks in a rough map of Raffie's route near the beginning.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)