Customer Reviews

I Was a Rat!

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just completed a one afternoon read of "I Was a Rat." Couldn't put it down. I had the same experience with the Harry Potter books.

Philip Pullman is a master of satire, adventure, and mystery. This sequel to Perrault's Cinderella story is as much an adult book as an intermediate grade-school book as listed. Some call it Dickensian because of the many twisted misadventures the amnesiac hero experience as he stumbles through the streets of English society. It's fun to gradually recognize the familiar "Cinderella" story unravel as the answer to the puzzle of rat-boy's origin. After the Princess solves the mystery, confesses her doubts about her life with the Prince, and proves to be kind to those in need, I saw a similarity to the life of Princess Diana. See if you feel the same.

A moral lesson or two or three can be explored and embraced if your experiences and psycho/social needs warrant them. Can we believe what we see and hear? Should we trust our

own perceptions or those of the press and politicians? Is inclusion a safe policy? Shouldn't those 'out of the norm' be put away for the safety of all? What about old habits and innate genetic predispositions? Can an individual given love and patient guidance choose to overcome antisocial behaviors? Should we follow our hearts? - after all, Cinderella (now that we know what really happened) and Princess Diana did and look what happened to them.

Most of all, of course, it's unique, fast moving and fun. A great book to read to kids from 7 to 107.

Mix together the Untold Secrets of the Cinderella story, alittle Dickens, some satire of the tabloids, a jab or two at the royalfamily, and a little boy who tries to be good although he is, admittedly, a bit ratty in his habits, and you get a book that's new and funny and charming.

For adults, much of the fun comes from figuring out early on that the boy who arrives on the doorstep of Bob (cobbler) and Joan (washerwoman) is Cinderella's rat-footman who was busy playing soccer in the castle when the coach and horses went back to being a pumpkin and some mice. For children (mine at least), the book transfixes even if (in the case of my youngest) the secret of Roger's rattiness remains a mystery. And Roger's rattiness itself delights: he likes to gnaw and nibble -- bits of leather, tassels, bell-ropes. The way he looks at these chewables makes my mouth water. I'm glad that at the end of the book he's still a bit of a nibbler -- although much improved, as Bob is proud to point out.

These are good reasons to run out and get this book; but they're not the only reasons or even the best. *I Was a Rat* has a depth that many excellent books lack. It's a book about growing up, about moving away from instinctual ratty behavior to being a good child. And it's hard to be a good child. Grown-ups are a strange breed who impose strange rules; they punish children for curious reasons. O.K., you may not have eaten your teacher's pencils, but what about the paints that you innocently spilled all over the rug? This book is about growing up and about how it's a hard journey that's never entirely completed. As Mary Jane (Princess Aurelia to us) points out at the end, even wishes coming true can complicate matters.

*I Was a Rat*, however, leaves us cozy and warm. Roger is with Bob and Joan, who have learned what it is to be parents. They sit around the hearth as a family and the world, "a difficult place", is outside, but they have "toasted cheese and love." Who could ask for more?

This book was a little weird but a great read. I read it from cover to cover while at the "town pool." The story will grab you in the beginning and let you go at the end. Don't pass on this one.......

When my mum first suggested i read it in turned up my nose, my mum doesn't exactly have the same taste in books as me... But this looked..different. I am still searching for a book that can beat The Harry Potter series however this one is in a league of it's own. I read it cover to cover in an hour and when i was finished i wanted more...It is a great story..hints of weirdness and fantasy tales, including cinderella. READ IT!

This book is about a boy named Roger who claims he is a rat. When a couple named Bob and Joan find him at their door, they don't know what to do. Could he really have been a rat? He certainly does have some rat-like habits. He shreds his bedding and bites his teacher. He goes into the sewer when he has to escape. When he finally gets captured, he is brought to trial to decide if he should be exterminated. Will he survive this adventure?

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a good funny book.

The story of the rat who was changed into a boy to go with Cinderella's coach. He got to playing with the other Palace page boys and never made it back to the coach, so he has remained a boy. But he still acts like a rat at times.

The newpaper hype blows the whole issue of a rat/boy into a media frenzy before the story ends.

Fun reading.

A cute little satire on the power of the press, how easily people can be led to believe the untrue, and the exclusion or inclusion of the weird and different. It also hints, for the eagle-eyed reader, at a very famous fairy-tale and a small detail that never gets handled....

"I was a rat." Or so says the lead character of this little illustrated novel. A little boy in a page uniform turns up on the doorstep of cobbler Bob and his wife Joan -- he can't give any kind of self-identification, except claiming that he was a rat. (Meanwhile, in little newspaper snippets we hear that the prince is getting married). The little boy, now named Roger, displays some ratlike tendencies like chewing through pencils and ripping up pillows. Despite this, he is also sweet-natured and eager to please.

But things go awry when the Royal Philosopher wants to study Roger -- and the boy escapes. He bumps into a juvenile gang, a freak-show, and is finally labelled a ratlike monster by the press and high-up officials. Who can help him now?

This is a cute story, pretty sparsely written and with a straightforward dang-he's-one-step-ahead-of-us plotline. There are a few plot holes, and some of the explanations feel a little odd and forced, though they do fit. And of course, there are the overblown bits of tabloid -- great fun.

Roger is a thoroughly sympathetic character, whom you are able to relate to despite the fact that he is so easily led, and thinks he's a rat. Equally, but differently, relatable are Joan and Bob, and Princess Aurelia. The other characters are more stereotyped in a pleasant sort of way, such as the gang of boys, the circus owner, and the various officials who crack down on Roger.

Overall, a cute and fun read. Definitely worth it.

Let me start out by saying that this book was written excellently, and yet, he kept the story very short and not too wordy. "I was a Rat" is a book about a rat that turns into a boy. it starts out withh the rat-boy, whos name is Roger, knocking on the door of this old couple. The couple ask who he is and where he is from, but all he says is that he was a rat. So the couple take him in for the night. Since the boy was a rat, he didn't know anything about being a boy. So the whole story portrays a rat becoming a human in a comical and exciting narrative. Thos book was very humorous, yet serious in it's own way. i loved this book. A great read.

I liked this book because it was a surprise all the way through the book and was it was hard to even guess what was going to come next. The funny part of the story for me was that no one knew that Roger had been a rat before except Mary Jane, Princess Aurelia. No one even believed him either.
The book, I Was A Rat, is about a little boy who claimed to have been a rat but not even one person believes him, they all think he is a little nutty. He has strange eating habits of rotten foods, cheese, leathers, and clothes. He gets lost and hides in the sewers and when he is found they think that he is non-human and they want to exterminate him. They decide to prosecute him and he loses so he is sentenced to extermination. The Princess finds this out and saves him because she knows that he is only human.
I would recommend this book to people of any age because this is an easy book to read and it is full of surprises and suspense. It is very funny sometimes. This is the perfect book for someone who wants a fun read.

THE BEST BOOK PHILIP PULLMAN EVER WROTE WAS I WAS A RAT. IT IS A GREAT BOOK BECAUSE IT HAD A LOT OF DETAILS, EXPRESION, MYSTERY WORDS, AND FEELINGS. IT CAN GRAB YOUR FEELINGS IF YOU READ THE THE BOOK. IF YOU LIKE TO SOLVE MYSTERIES THEN THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU. ALL OF YOU OUT THERE HAVE GOT TO READ THIS BOOK. WHEN YOU GET AT THE END YOU WILL WANT TO READ MORE ABOUT IT. IF YOU DO WANT TO READ MORE ABOUT IT THEN DO A SEARCH AND SEE IF THERE ARE MORE BOOKS THAT PHILIP PULLMAN WROTE - THEY ARE VERY INTERESTING.