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.
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.
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