Emmy and the Home for Troubled Girls [Hardcover]

Lynne Jonell (Author), Jonathan Bean (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2008 | Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

Emmy Addison is an ordinary girl—almost. If you don’t count the fact that her parents are rich (very), her best friend is a boy (and a soccer star), and she can talk to rodents (and they talk back), she’s very ordinary indeed. But she hasn’t been that way for long . . .

It was only a few weeks ago that Emmy and her friends Ratty and Joe got rid of the evil Miss Barmy, the nanny who had nearly ruined Emmy’s life—and the lives of five other girls who went missing. Miss Barmy is now a rat. How much harm can she do?

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 3–6—In this sequel to Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat (Holt, 2007), Emmy discovers the fate and whereabouts of the five missing girls pictured on evil Miss Barmy's cane. Although the woman is no longer Emmy's nanny—in fact, she is now a rat—her plots are as wicked as ever. Using the powers of their talented rodent friends to change sizes, the protagonist and her friends seek to thwart Miss Barmy's attempts to subvert the rodent community while also attempting to rescue the girls, who are the four-inch-high prisoners of Miss Barmy's nasty parents. Emmy's uncertainty about her ability to make human friends and about her role within the rodent community cause her to make bad decisions when these two worlds come in contact with one another; luckily, she redeems herself by the end. The plot moves in fits and starts, lacking the fizzy energy of the first book—possibly because the sassy Rat plays a smaller role this time—but fans will find plenty of adventure, fun, and all the rodents they could wish for.—Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library
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From Booklist

This sequel to Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat (2007) picks up where the last book left off: Emmy is back to her old life, and her evil governess, Miss Barmy, and Barmy’s devoted swain, Cheswick, are now rats. All Emmy wants is a normal life, but as a character in The Godfather said, “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in.” So it is with Emmy, who can hardly get to a sleepover because of chatty, needy rodents. Others need her help as well: the mysterious faces carved on Miss Barmy’s cane turn out to be Barmy’s former charges, now miniaturized and held prisoner in Barmy’s father’s shoe store. There’s plenty of backstory, but its presentation is sometimes unwieldy, and although this has many of the same delightful elements as the previous book (a solid mystery, great characters), there’s also some bloat and a disconnect between plotlines. Still, this is fun, and fans of the first book will be pleased Emmy has been pulled back in once more. Grades 4-6. --Ilene Cooper

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); First Edition edition (October 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805081518
• ISBN-13: 978-0805081510
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #884,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Emmy Strikes Again, July 8, 2011

By 

LeeAnn Lamphiear (Yakima, Washington USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Emmy and the Home for Troubled Girls (Hardcover)

I am a teacher and I read the first book - "Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat" to my third grade students. They LOVED it! Then I found out that there was a sequel - "Emmy and the Home for Troubles Girls" and we had to get that to read also. Both books are delightfully and comically written with a variety of engaging characters, especially Miss Barmy, whom my students loved to hate. The plot kept us guessing until the end and we had to preempt all that fun stuff, like math and social studies, to finish the book. I highly recommend these two books.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars humorous fantasy, October 14, 2008

By 

Kirsten G. Cutler (Santa Rosa, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Emmy and the Home for Troubled Girls (Hardcover)

Jonell, Lynne. Emmy and the Home for Troubled Girls. Art by Jonathan Bean. Henry Holt and Company. 2008.

Emmy from "Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat" (Henry Holt, 2007) is back with her best friend Joe and her delightful animal friends in another amusing fantasy adventure. Emmy, Joe, and her new friend Meg get involved in rescuing some kidnapped children who have been shrunk and enslaved by Emmy's former villainous nanny, Miss Barmy. Jonathan Bean decorates the page tops with a recurring closet shelf that hints of the mystery in the story, and cleverly creates an animated mouse figure gradually climbing a rope up to the shelf as the story progresses. Well-written humorous dialogue and engaging characters make this book an appealing read for children, ages 9-12.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quick read for a 7 year old, July 20, 2010

By 

Monica Lopez "Californian" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Emmy and the Home for Troubled Girls (Paperback)

Great 2nd book. "Couldn't wait to finish it and read it in 1 day." " she kept shrinking and observing the world in new ways" "going back and forth between the rodent world and the human world kept it interesting"