I just finished Philip Pullman’s I Was a Rat!, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. I mentioned a while ago that I gave up on The Scarecrow and His Servant, because I just couldn’t feel the love, but I highly recommend this one to anyone who’s got a 2-4th grade reader to buy or borrow books for. [Note: This isn't in line with His Dark Materials--it is clearly for younger readers.]
The book tells the story of a boy who turns up at the house of a childless old couple, lost and proclaiming that until three weeks ago, he was a rat. He is clueless about how to behave like a human, and makes many terrible (and quite humorous) mistakes on the road to learning how to be a good boy. (Good, here, in both the sense of being a convincing example of a boy and in behaving properly.) It turns out that the boy, who comes to be called Roger, was one of the rats a certain fairy godmother turned into a footman; he ran off to play soccer while waiting for the ball to end, and missed his chance to be turned back into a rat.
Roger’s story is furthered along by excerpts from the local paper, The Daily Scourge, where Pullman’s wit and opinions are clear to cynics in training and the adults who love them.
This is going into my book talk for Resources for Children for sure. Two thumbs up!
1 comment:
Have you read his Northern Lights series? Lots of lovely imagination at play there, if that's your cup of tea.
i'd heard the Rat book was good - must look out for it here.
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