The World-Famous Cheese Shop Break-in

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

There it was, between The Greengrocer's and The Underwear Outfitters.

The Cheese Shop.

It was stuffed full of cheese stinkier than old socks.

And Daddypops said just what I knew he was going to...

"We are about to carry out the World-Famous Cheese Shop Break-In."



Daddypops says it will be as easy as 123 to get into the Cheese Shop... First he tells his children to just walk through the door and get the cheese... But THAT doesn't work. Then he makes a catapult and fires them into the shop.... THAT doesn't work either. Finally Daddypops has his most brilliant idea ever. He gets a pickaxe, a shovel and a bucket and tells the children what to do. They will dig a tunnel to the Cheese Shop, and break through to the shop floor at dead of night. What could go wrong??

In this laugh-out-loud story, the rats get the surprise of their lives when they pop out of their tunnel. They are not in the Cheese Shop at all - they're surrounded by Fancy Pants and Underwear. And that's when Daddypops has another good idea...!

Reviews provided by Syndetics

School Library Journal Review

PreS-Gr 1-A family of masked miscreant rodents-a father rat and his two offspring-set their sights on getting into the neighborhood cheese shop at any cost. After trying to nonchalantly walk inside, then to catapult, Daddypops, the king of bad ideas, decides to tunnel into the shop. Many tribulations later, the bedraggled rats break through... into the Underwear Boutique next door. This error inspires the rat dad to give up thieving and become a proprietor of rat underwear, allowing the family to buy all the cheese they want. Shaw's signature cartoon illustrations offer up many giggle-worthy details-brother rat plastered onto the shop window, father rat clad in enormous striped briefs, a rat customer with underpants on her head. Endpapers cleverly feature labeled platefuls of various cheeses at the beginning of the book and mostly empty plates with little footprints at the end. VERDICT A silly caper that kids who crack up at the very mention of underwear will enjoy.-Yelena Alekseyeva-Popova, formerly at Chappaqua Library, NY © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

A cheese shop makes an irresistible target for a bandit rat and his only slightly less avid offspring. "It was stuffed full of cheese stinkier than old socks. The smell was yummy in our tummies!" Unfortunately, Daddypops' enthusiasm outweighs his ability to concoct a successful scheme. Following ill-conceived efforts to slip in through the front door and to catapult the young narrator through a very hard display window, a near-disastrous bit of tunneling brings three dirty, wet, weary rats up at lastinto the underwear boutique next door. Discouraged at last, Daddypops decides to buy stinky cheese henceforth rather than try to steal it. So he takes up the suggestion of his practical-minded daughter, Shanice, to open his own storeselling gaudy underthings for rats. Shaw gleefully produces comical scenes of the hapless trio of masked, pointy-nosed would-be burglars engaged in incompetent malefaction; Daddypops is clad in a black-and-white striped wife beater, perhaps a souvenir from a previous residence. The story is capped by a parade of rodent customers proudly sporting garish skivvies, and endpaper arrays of labeled cheeses add a nice touch. When it comes to whiff, no substitute for The Stinky Cheese Man or Garrison Keillor and Anne Wilsdorf's Old Man Who Loved Cheese (1996) but gouda for a few chuckles. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.