title: How to Save Your Tail: *if you are a rat nabbed by cats who really like stories about magic spoons, wolves with snout-warts, big, hairy chimney trolls and cookies, too.
author: Mary Hanson
description: Grade 2&ndash;5&mdash;A book-loving, cookie-baking rat gives Scheherazade a run for her money in this whimsical collection. When a book on a bench catches his eye, Bob, the castle rat, becomes distracted and soon finds himself in the clutches of the Queen's cats. As the felines prepare to devour the savory rodent morsel, Bob attempts to postpone his fate by plying them with a batch of his fresh-baked cookies and regaling them with his ancestral tales. All of his stories are parodies of classic fairy tales, such as "The Three Pigs," "Jack and the Beanstalk," and "Rumpelstiltskin." Clever wordplay and large doses of humor make this a most enjoyable selection that has great potential as a read-aloud. The black-and-white cartoon-style illustrations add to the fun and will captivate even the most reluctant of young readers.&mdash;<I>Debbie Lewis O'Donnell, Alachua County Library District, Gainesville, FL</I> <BR>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  ALLIE FINDS ANOTHER BODY
  
  
  I was going through my project documents, trying to figure out where the snafu
  might have come from, when Ursi hissed and let out a growl that would make a
  mountain lion proud. By the time I looked up, her back was a feline version of
  the St. Louis Arch and her tail was a bushy, black-and-orange feather duster.
  
  
  “What’s wrong?” I went to her and bent down to figure out what had her freaked
  out. Seconds later, I sprang back upright as my blood ran cold.
  
  
  Ursi had uncovered a human finger.
  
  
  Forcing myself to maintain some semblance of calm, I grabbed a decent-sized
  piece of mulch and scraped smaller wooden pieces from the finger. It only took
  a few scrapes to reveal an entire hand.
  
  
  “Oh, God.” I fell to my hands and knees and vomited. The hand wasn’t fake. Or
  warm.
  
  
  Something told me it was attached to an entire body.
  
  
  With trembling fingers, I dialed 9-1-1. I broke out