Happy Chinese New Year!

February 7 begins the Year of the Rat! In honour of this, here is a book list of ratty-themed reading for the year.

1. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh / Robert C. O'Brien

A school-age favourite of mine, this tale of Mrs. Frisby and her family of mice fascinated me. Mrs. Frisby, a meek field mouse, meets with a group of super intelligent rats while trying to get medicine for her sick son Timothy. They help her only because her deceased husband was one of the mice in the labs of NIMH who escaped with the rats; they had been experimented on to increase their intelligence and it worked so well, they intelligently escaped. The rats are now planning on moving further away from civilization to escape their dependence on humankind, and Mrs. Frisby is able to help them in return with information on the impending arrival of exterminators. A strange but charming book.


2. The Wind in the Willows / Kenneth Grahame

In the 100th year since publication, how can I neglect the wonderful character of Ratty, who thinks that there is "nothing, simply nothing as wonderful as messing about in boats".

3. The Amazing Maurice and his educated rodents / Terry Pratchett

Who is the Amazing Maurice? Why, he's a cat, a conman of a cat who travels the countryside with his magically intelligent band of rodents and a rather dimwitted, flute-playing boy. They travel to small towns off the beaten track and make quite a living ridding these towns of their rat infestations. This time, however, Peaches and Dangerous Beans (names chosen before the rats really understood the labels on the cans they were reading) are beginning to have reservations as to the morality of their scam... Perfectly Pratchett.

4. I was a Rat! / Phillip Pullman

Yes, that Phillip Pullman. This is a charming middle school novel about one of certain group of rats, turned into a page boy and then stuck in boy form. He finds his way to the doorstep of Bob & Joan, cobbler and washerwoman, and after much getting lost and being found, and pitfalls along the way he learns the joys of being a human boy. Also features a marvellous Princess (formerly Mary Jane the kitchen girl), and lots of interspersed tabloid pages featuring the scandal of the "Rat Boy". A wonderful story.

5. Firmin / Sam Savage

Definitely adult reading, this one takes on the autobiography of a preternaturally intelligent rat, who lives in a used bookshop and reads (and eats) books incessantly. Told in the first person (or first rat's?) voice his sad and indigent existence is full of winks at the bibliophile reader. My only warning is that the accompanying art is not really very good. In fact it's pretty awful.