Skip to main content

Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat


EMMY AND THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING RAT
By Lynne Jonell
Henry Holt, 2007. 346pp. Juvenile Fiction.

Emmy is a good girl--smart, thoughtful, obedient, and kind--but no one seems aware of her existence. Her schoolmates and teachers treat her as though she were invisible, and her parents are almost always traveling to bizarre out-of-country events, leaving Emmy with Miss Barmy, an icky governess. Emmy makes the best of things but is very lonely, until the day she strikes up a conversation with the pet rat in her school room. When she sets him free, she and Ratty begin a whirlwind of adventures that will lead them to shocking discoveries about Miss Barmy, Emmy's parents, Ratty's early years, and the nature of rodentkind. Emmy is a delightful heroine, Ratty is a truculent and melodramatic sidekick, and with lots of help from Joe and Brian, good things come to pass. Although things get a bit muddled and frantic towards the end of the book, Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat is inventive, charming, and laugh out loud funny.

Comments

2112 said…
A very enjoyable read. Fun characters and crazy adventures made it real page-turner!

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Fowl Play

  Fowl Play By Kristin O'Donnell Tubb New York: Katherine Tegen Books, 2024. Fiction 277 pages. Still reeling from her beloved uncle's death, Chloe Alvarez is comforted and confused when at his last will and testament reading, Uncle Will gifts her his African Grey parrot, Charlie. Charlie has a robust vocabulary and loves to make Alexa requests for her favorite songs, but when she starts saying things like, "homicide," and "cyanide," Chloe becomes convinced that Uncle Will may have met his demise by murder instead of a genetic disease, as was previously thought. Ultimately, bringing in her brother, Grammy, and Uncle Frank (and of course Charlie,) Chloe's ragtag and adoring family support her search for answers ---going on stakeouts, engaging in fast pursuits, and searching for clues. But as the suspects stack up and the mystery grows, Chole will learn that the process of death and grieving is complicated, and in the end her Uncle Will's words that, ...

Review: Alice with a Why

Alice with a Why By Anna James New York: Penguin, 2026. Fiction. 240 pgs. In 1919, in the aftermath of the first World War, Alyce is living with her grandmother in the English countryside. Her grandmother, also named Alice, tells Alyce (with a y) stories from her childhood adventures in a wonderful land filled with white rabbits and mad hatters. Alyce doesn't really believe the silly stories, she just misses her father who was killed in the war. One day, Alyce receives a mysterious invitation to tea, and subsequently falls into a pond where she is transported to Wonderland. Her grandmother, of course, is that Alice. Alyce is prompted by the Mad Hatter, Dormouse, and March Hare to seek out the Time Being and put an end to the war between the Sun King and the Queen of the Moon. Thus begins Alyce's adventure through Wonderland. I have a certain soft spot for the original story of Alice in Wonderland. It is one of my particular favorites and I often have a hard time reading new int...

Review: Blood in the Water

Blood in the Water By Tiffany D. Jackson New York: Scholastic, 2025. Fiction. 255 pages. 12-year-old Kaylani McKinnon can't help but feel like a fish out of water. She's a Brooklyn girl spending her summer on Martha's Vineyard surrounded by wealthy family friends in their mansion. All she really wants is to stay home all summer where she her incarcerated father can easily reach her, and she can keep working to find ways to prove him innocent of fraud and embezzlement. Despite her protests, she finds herself on the island with the snooty granddaughters of her host. Soon after Kaylani's arrival, a popular teen boy is found murdered and she decides to conduct her own investigation. As she tries to discover what happened to Chadwick Cooper, Kaylani finds that not everything on Martha's Vineyard is as perfect as it appears. Thrillers for middle grade readers can be hard to find, but Tiffany D. Jackson succeeds in her first middle grade novel. A quick moving plot, tight d...