Redwall by Brian Jacques

A Saga about the attack of a madman on an Abbey in England.  The characters are represented by animanls.  Mice run an Abbey that helps the community and takes-in the sick to help them get well.  A Rat, Cluny the Scourge, travels with his horde of rats, weasels and ferrets in search of plunder.  But when he sees the Abbey, he decides he wants it for his castle.  The Abbey had a hero in its past, Martin of Redwall.  Now they had another, Matthias.  The scenes shift from Cluny to Matthias and the mouse goes on adventures to find Martin’s sword so he can return to Redwall and defeat Cluny.

The book is rather long and even though written for British children, it might not have been quite as popular in the U.S. because of colloquialisms and the violence in the scenes.  Cluny has a poison barb on his tale, there is a military Rabbit, the sparrows, who seem to hate everything, shrews who constantly fight, a barn cat, a snowy owl and a viper.  Matthias has to either defeat or turn all of them.