'A squirrel called Rufus'

the long version

Here's a book for the whole family- in the same sense as is Wind in the willows. It has a fantasy quality- but it has adventure and vitality and excitement, along with a vibrant sense of woodland and pasture. Rufus is the leader of as fierce an army as ever defended the English homeland, -- an army of native red squirrels battling the invading grey squirrels. Though there is a great deal of personalizing the squirrels remain squirrels, and the lesser characters are compounded of that same sort of stuff that makes them live in the reader's memory.