See how they run. See how they run. | Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat

Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat | Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat | Lynne Jonell

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	• Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat Lynne Jonell Square Fish, 2008 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A satisfying read from beginning to end.

Lynne has created an instant classic; it reminds me of my favorite stories like Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet and Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang. Her story has memorable characters that you'll love and enjoy right from the start and a storyline that combines mystery, magic, real life problems and wonderful, droll humor. It's delightful to watch Emmy break out of her "too goodness" to solve the mystery and to save her family. Not to mention saving not just herself but all of her newly made friends. It's gripping, its a bit scary, its funny and comforting. It is a satisfying read from beginning to end that I think kids and adults both would enjoy.

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See how they run. See how they run.

It's easy to become jaded. Read enough children's fiction and it all begins to swim and swirl about in your head. Was that the middle grade novel about a girl who likes a boy with twinkling blue eyes or deep brown ones you just read? Did that historical fiction work involve a plucky boy working in a coalmine or a plucky girl in a mill? And fantasy? Don't get me started. If the villains don't burst onto the scene in the first chapter it's the exception rather than the rule. I gotta say though that when it comes to rodents with magical powers, there are few titles to turn to. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh was strictly scientific (that is, if you can forget the movie). I, Freddy is more along the lines of The Mouse and the Motorcycle than anything else. No, mice and magic don't intersect all that often. One can't help but think that if they did the result would be wuh-eird. Wuh-eird, as it happens, is not a bad word to describe author Lynne Jonell's startling middle grade debut. At this point in my review's introductory paragraph I usually like to compare the book in my hands to titles you might be familiar with. Something along the lines of, "It's like James and the Giant Peach meets The Perils of Peppermints." But when it comes to "Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat," there's not much you can compare the book to. It's one of a kind, and how kids take that originality will be interesting to note, indeed.

Poor Emmy. Nobody notices her. Not her parents who are constantly jet-setting around to globe. Not her schoolmates or her teacher, who all seem incapable of remembering her name. No, it's just Emmy, her somewhat frightening nanny Miss Barmy, and the school rat. The Rat not only pays attention to Emmy but talks to her sometimes too. Granted it tends to tell Emmy to try being bad once in a while, but the girl knows that it has a good heart beneath its prickly demeanor. Soon, however, Emmy finds that the Rat is not all that it seems to be. Talking is just the least of its abilities, and as the girl discovers more about her nanny and the woman's sinister plot involving Emmy, her parents, and a host of exotic rodents, so too does she establish a core group of friends who will aid her through thick and thin.

At some point Henry Holt and Company got all clever on us and decided to create little packets of first chapters of their upcoming book seasons to hand out at library conferences. As a result, I read the first chapter of "Emmy" some time ago and remembered to give it a glance when a full-length physical copy fell into my lap. I'm glad I did. In spite of its 346-some-page length, I can't help but think that this would make an excellent book to read aloud to a 4th, 5th, or 6th grade class. There is something distinctly Dahl-like hidden in the crevices of this book. Much of the plot relies on old Roald Dahl standbys, like malicious caretakers, controlled magic, and children who are far cleverer than the adults that surround them. And if I'm not too much mistaken, I think that there's even a tip of the hat to Ramona Quimby in this book. Where else, after all, have you ever heard the National Anthem sung with the words, "daaawnzer lee liiight"?

I should note that some small illustrations in this book have been created thanks to the frighteningly prolific pen of Jonathan Bean. The man has contributed to AT LEAST four children's books in 2007 alone. One gets a little queasy wondering how much else he might have up his sleeve. In this particular offering Bean provides only scant pictures. There's the cover, a title page or two, and a very amusing flip-book graphic on the side of the text that shows the Rat falling out of a tree into Emmy's hands. Librarians should be warned that if you find this particular title over-thumbed in your collection, there is a very good reason for it.

I did appreciate that Jonell felt obligated to cover her bases, even when the reader forgets a detail here and there. For example, there is a point in the story when it is discovered that the Rat's bite shrinks people. Yet Emmy's schoolmate Joe points out that he was bitten by the rat before but to no effect. He raises this point several times, actually, so that the reader slowly realizes just how important this fact is (particularly since it leads to a huge climax in the plot later). Still, sometimes the book felt less than entirely consistent. You're never quite sure exactly how small Joe and Emmy become when they're shrunk. Joe is able to wear G.I. Joe clothing sometimes, but at other moments he's supposedly large enough to play soccer with some chipmunks. Then again, we're told that "We're only a few inches high, you know. Four feet, to us, is going to seem like being on top of a six story building." Inconsistencies like this made it hard to visualize the action.

There are also some convenient plot devices that raised an eyebrow but weren't really distracting. Apparently when you shrink, your clothes shrink along with you (as opposed to in The Dark Ground). Also, Jonell requires that you remember some pretty minor characters from the beginning of the book all the way to the end, which I thought was a bit odd. I liked the internal logic going on here, though. I liked the peculiar world Jonell had envisioned and how neatly everything slotted into it. I can guarantee to you that if you've a child who has read the oeuvre of Roald Dahl and wants a little something extra, "Emmy" is a good way to go. Ideal for any child who has felt ignored or looked over at some point in their life. Which is to say, most every child.

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Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat

A diabolical nanny, a clever thoughtful little girl and a talking rat face off in this deliciously witty and intelligent story. Emmy is an exceedingly well-behaved girl who enjoyed life with her parents and had many friends before an inheritance from a great uncle brings an end to cozy family interactions and Emmy and her parents move to her Great-Uncle's mansion. Now Emmy attends a new school, her parents are always off traveling and Emmy is supervised by Miss Barmy, a very unpleasant and strange nanny who is constantly tearing down her self- esteem and giving her mysterious medicines, one turned her face orange. Her classmates and teacher hardly notice her, "Emma? Emmaline Addison?" Mr. Herbifore gazed out over the heads of his students. Emmy stood up. "No, I don't see her," he said into the phone. "Emmy walked forward and stood by the teacher's desk. What did she have to do, she wondered, bewildered. Throw firecrackers under his chair? Hang from the ceiling and make like a monkey? She tugged at the teacher's sleeve and spoke loudly in his ear. "Here I am, Mr. Herbifore." The teacher stared at her doubtfully. Oh? Are you sure?" One day, the classroom rat tells her that she is too nice, "A little meanness is good for the soul. I highly recommend it." At the end of an entertaining repartee that includes Rat's response to Emmy's surprised comment, "Rodents play soccer?" "Of course they play soccer, he snapped. What do you think they do for fun? Run about, frightening elephants? Scavenge in churches for crumbs? Really, your ignorance is appalling." Rat pleads with Emmy to release him from his cage and when she does this engaging story explodes with adventure, suspense, and humor.

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Incredible rat, forgettable girl, help each other in a spell-affected world

Like other kids her age (eleven), Emmaline "Emmy" Augusta Addison "named after two great-aunts" sometimes feels invisible. Her formerly loving, attentive parents seem to have taken a turn for the selfish since inheriting the fortune (and thirty-three room house) of a distant uncle. They can no longer be bothered with tending to their daughter, and are almost constantly absent, embarking on a series of increasingly prevalent and lengthy trips. Upon their return, they seem like their old selves again - briefly - before taking on personality characteristics entirely opposite of their true selves. Emmy, as a result, is primarily parented by an inconsiderate, controlling nanny with a penchant for using odd remedies for curing what (the nanny believes) ails the girl. Her classmates seem almost unaware of her existence. Finally, one day when she is alone in her school classroom, a (p 25) "small, arrogant, impossible creature," gives her what for after witnessing her sometimes-spineless behavior. In spite of his imperiousness, she unlatches his cage and releases him to fend for himself. And so starts their adventure.

Along with both human and rodent friends, Emmy and Rat endeavor to foil an evil plan masterminded by her nanny, Miss Barmy, having lots of fun and fright along the way. Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat, filled with gnawing, nibbling, funny, furry characters (as well as a few humans), is a magical, marvelous story about a good girl and a ridiculous (but lovable) Rat. The novel includes a flipbook along the rhs of Rat falling from a tree. Also good, The Tale of Desperaux by Kate Decamillo and Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins.

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Emmy was a good girl. At least she tried very hard to be good. She did her homework without being told. She ate all her vegetables, even the slimy ones. And she never talked back to her nanny, Miss Barmy, although it was almost impossible to keep quiet?some days. Honestly, Emmy really was a little too good. Which is why she liked to sit by the Rat. The Rat was not good at all. . . .

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