Fourth Grade Rats

Suds is the protagonist and first-person narrator of the novel. Through his perspective, the novel explores common themes of growing up, redefining identity, integrity, and coping with peer pressure. As he works on Navigating the Path to Preadolescence, his inner conflicts drive the events and structure of the novel. From the very first page of the book, Suds struggles with the transition from third grade to fourth grade and buckles under the new social pressures that this transition brings to his life. Unlike Joey, Suds is not eager to become a rat; his sensitive and socially conscious nature conflict with the rebellious and oftentimes cruel rat persona that he is pressured to adopt, creating cognitive dissonance as Suds tries to balance social acceptance with personal integrity and temporarily loses the battle.

Throughout the novel, Joey pressures Suds to become a rat, and this external pressure leads to Suds’s internal conflict as the protagonist struggles with his changing identity and the unkind things he does to others in his quest to become a rat. The narrative immediately establishes Suds’s dissimilarity to Joey in Chapter 1; whereas Joey expresses excitement at being a rat, Suds is initially reluctant.