By Cam Higgins Allison Steinfeld
A pizza-loving rat turns an icky city scavenger hunt into a high-stakes mission to return a lost treasure.
Cam Higgins, the creator of the Good Dog series, introduces us to a tiny hero with a big name in *Lost and Found in the City*. Ratnip, formally known as Extra Cheese Scratchy Paws Sniffs-a-Lot, is a “pizza rat” living in a defunct pizza parlor with his siblings and a wise raccoon named Cookie. When Ratnip discovers a “shiny black rectangle”—actually a lost cell phone—he recruits a team of pigeons, a cockroach, and an alley cat to return it to its owner before the sun rises. There are 8 books in this collection so far, offering a steady supply of stories for students who want to keep following the same characters.
This series is a great find for students who are building their English skills or those who usually avoid longer chapters. Allison Steinfeld’s illustrations appear on almost every page. These drawings give readers visual clues to help them follow the plot without feeling stuck on difficult words. The language is simple and energetic, and the characters have food-themed names like Pepperoni and Veggie that stay the same throughout the books. This consistency helps learners feel at home with the vocabulary and the setting. In a school setting, these stories work well for independent reading time. Students can feel the satisfaction of finishing one book and want to immediately start the next one.
**Total Books in Series:** 8
**Best Starting Point:** Lost and Found in the City
