Rat Life [Paperback]

Tedd Arnold (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 6, 2009

The dead body found in the river has nothing to do with Todd. Sure, a murder is big news, but what would really interest him? A paying job. Then he meets Rat, who?s already been to Vietnam. And when he offers Todd a gig at the drive-in theater, Todd takes it. But hanging out with Rat leads to a host of perplexing questions. More and more, that corpse from the river is on Todd?s mind, and no matter how he shifts the pieces around, Rat is always part of the puzzle.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-10–Despite a slow start, this is a solid story set in the early 1970s, with a likable main character and a thrilling climax. Readers will sympathize with Todd, a creative, sensitive boy who helps his parents run a motel in upstate New York and dreams of becoming a writer. When he crosses paths with Rat, a moody young Vietnam veteran, he gets a job at the drive-in theater where Rat works, and finds himself fascinated by the young man, who is compelling but possibly dangerous. Todd begins to wonder if his new friend might have something to do with the unidentified body pulled out of the river. However, the mystery builds quietly as other elements take precedence, including Todd's encounter with an abandoned puppy and the subsequent rabies shots he must endure, his resentment over chores at the motel, his struggles to write a story for English class, and his grandmother's deteriorating mental condition. When the river floods, both Todd and Rat are caught up in the disaster, and the truth comes out at last. The final chapters are riveting, but readers hoping for a fast-paced mystery might be disappointed by the leisurely unfolding of events up to that point. More patient readers will enjoy the details of small-town life and identify with Todd's preoccupations and yearnings.–Miranda Doyle, San Francisco Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Fourteen-year-old Todd entertains his classmates with gross-out tales, concocting crude metaphors for diarrhea ("sewer stew"), but parallels with Arnold's irreverent picture books (Parts, 2004) end there. Goofy boyhood preoccupations fade early in this ambitious first novel, in which Todd's friendship with Rat, a soldier recently returned from Vietnam, awakens the adolescent to ethical ambiguities and often-cruel realities, and pushes his writing hobby in new directions. As details about Rat's background emerge, and incidents suggest he may fit the "ticking time bomb psycho" profile of a Vietnam vet, Todd reluctantly begins to trace links between his friend and an unsolved murder. The novel's slow, introspective first half may lose some readers, and there are too many subplots, including a catastrophic flood that feels abruptly introduced and unnecessarily sensational. Even so, Arnold is an impressively adept writer; especially strong is his portrayal of Rat, who keeps readers on the knife's edge between sympathy and mistrust and whose enigmatic persona lends as much credence to the book's classification as a mystery as its more traditional gumshoe elements. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Puffin; Reprint edition (August 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014241431X
• ISBN-13: 978-0142414316
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #650,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Elmira, New York, Tedd grew up in a family of six with three brothers. His family lived on a farm in Pennsylvania for several years then returned to Elmira until Tedd was ten years old. His father's work then required that they move to Gainesville, Florida. There, Tedd's first art lessons in an abandoned dentist's office over the Happy Hour pool hall eventually led to a fine arts degree from the University of Florida. He and his wife, Carol, started their family in Tallahassee where Tedd worked as a commercial illustrator. Carol, a Kindergarten teacher, drew Tedd's attention to children's books. Their first son, Walter, inspired his breakthrough picture book, No Jumping on the Bed!. His second son, William, now stars in No More Water in the Tub!, a sequel to his first book. He has now published more than 30 books as author and illustrator. When not working on his books, Tedd's interests include tennis, sketching, reading, coin collecting, and the computer."The inspiration to begin writing and illustrating for children came from my wife, Carol. As a kindergarten teacher, she collected picture books. I was attracted to their colorful pages and the way the words and pictures played with each other, much like the captioned cartoons I had drawn when I was young."Perhaps the biggest surprise of my career as an author is that I'm now going back to elementary school! Visiting young readers in classrooms and libraries is something I love. Kids keep me on my toes and they ask a lot of questions. The number one question seems to be, 'Where do you get your ideas?' It's also the hardest question to answer because every idea is different. Some ideas seem to pop out of thin air -- while I'm in the shower or walking the dog. Others come from reading or research. But most of my ideas come from my family and the things they do and say."For instance, one time when my first son, Walter, was five years old, I found him lying on the couch, looking pale as a ghost and clutching a Bible to his chest. He was praying! When I asked what was wrong, he wouldn't answer. In fact, he wouldn't even open his mouth. My wife, Carol, finally coaxed a response from him: he pointed inside his mouth. Carol exclaimed, 'You have a loose tooth!' Walter's eyes nearly popped out with fright. We quickly assured him that it was perfectly okay for his tooth to come loose and that a new one would replace it. But Carol and I looked at each other and realized that despite all our efforts to be good parents, we had somehow completely forgotten to warn Walter that teeth fall out! He had thought he was falling apart! I made a little note in my journal; then ten years later, I expanded that memory into my book Parts."Tedd Arnold lives in Elmira, New York, with his wife, Carol, two sons, Walter and William, two cats, Cody and Frankie, and one dog, Hershey.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for Reluctant Readers!, November 7, 2007

By 

L. K. Messner "Kate Messner" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rat Life (Hardcover)

I loved RAT LIFE, Tedd Arnold's first foray into young adult literature. The writing is funny at times and always fresh, and Arnold uses his main character's interest in the craft of writing to make some keen observations about the process.

This book made me laugh one minute and gasp in shock the next. Its narrator, Todd, is a would-be writer growing up in Upstate NY in 1972. In the first pages of the book, he hears about a body found in a river and meets a mysterious character who calls himself Rat. Todd wonders if Rat, an underaged recruit who's just back from a tour of Vietnam, has something to do with that body in the river, and those suspicions mount throughout the novel, all the way to its dizzying climax.

I could go on and on about the humor, the interesting writing strategies Arnold employed, the gut-wrenching scene that almost made me stop reading but is so important to the book... but I'll let you discover this one for yourself. Don't start reading until you have some time; you won't want to take breaks.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rat Life, June 22, 2007

By 

Steven Donald (Hillsboro, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rat Life (Hardcover)

The creator of a bunch of humorous picture books and a great new series of early readers ("Fly Guy") also does novels! Well at least he's done one, and it's quite good. It's narrated by fourteen year old Todd, who has some odd and interesting experiences during the spring of 1972. Most are related in some way to an older boy known only as "Rat." We eventually learn that Rat is a Vietnam vet whose childhood was about as bad as it gets. But when Todd meets him, he's a fascinating, slightly scary figure. It's easy to see why Todd is intrigued by Rat, but less clear in the beginning why this older young man would take an interest in a boy several years younger. The reasons are right there in the book, though, and Arnold neatly avoids hitting us over the head with them. It starts when Rat watches Todd put an injured dog out of her misery; this certainly must resonate with Rat's Vietnam experiences, but that's never stated, which is just right. The book is subtitled "a mystery," but the heart of the novel is really the relationship between these two characters. While Todd gets to know Rat better, he's also developing into a real writer. His shares early efforts with his friends and gets some praise from an English teacher, but it's through his experiences with Rat that he really starts to learn how to write what's important. Todd's interest in writing emerges in an intriguing introduction, where he tries out eight possible first lines for his book, rejecting each for different reasons. Besides being a great way to introduce a first person narrator, this allows him to plant some kernels related to future action that makes us want to learn more. It's the sort of device that can easily seem contrived, but it works perfectly here. It soon becomes clear that Rat must somehow be connected to a mysterious murder in town, and the discovery of how and why provides the main tension of the story. It all comes to a head when the town is flooded, and although this is the most dramatic action we see, it's also where I lost interest a bit. The flood scenes drag on a bit, and the near drownings are actually less involving than some of the tense, meaningful, conversations between Todd and Rat. It's not like any readers will quit midway, though. Both Todd and Rat are way too interesting.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Disturbing - hated it, October 11, 2009

By 

C. Presland-byrne "Bubba" (Texas, US) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rat Life (Hardcover)

This book is not for teens and as an adult it was extremely disturbing. My 15 year old started to read this and got 1/4 of the way in and was extremely disturbed by the imagery and narrative about the puppy. This does not support the story nor is it needed and should have required some kind of warning on the cover. If not bad enough, the author chooses to reintroduce the event throughout the book. I would not recommend this book period, its poor in terms of detective anything, the imagery is well written but the imagery itself is not one that I, nor I would suspect most people who do not dwell on the maudlin, will not appreciate this. This book is not for an animal lover or anyone with an ounce of compassion for living things. If anyone does enjoy this, I would strongly advise against them having any kind of weapons license.