I've been reading some fine books lately, but I've been thinking I really need something with a talking cat or talking rat.

This book gives us a magical forest with talking coyotes early on and then talking birds.

But I was thinking about giving up on it, when, bam, there's a talking rat!

Lifted the story right up. And the sample at the end indicates the talking rat is in the sequel, [b:Under Wildwood|10353049|Under Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles, #2)|Colin Meloy|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1334331844s/10353049.jpg|15255958]. So I'll be reading that soon.