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Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMHRobert C. O'Brien
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
by Robert C. O'Brien
A widowed field mouse whose son is too ill to be moved before ploughing seeks help from the rats under the rosebush, who can read.
A story about animals, adventurous and thoughtful in tone. We would put it with children of 9–12, and at a reading age of about 10 for reading alone.
Worth knowing before you buy
- Mild peril
- An animal dies
None of this makes it a bad book — often the opposite. It is here so you can decide whether it is right for your child now or in a year or two.
Our take on this book
Mrs Frisby, a widowed field mouse, faces disaster: ploughing time is coming, her home will be destroyed, and her son is too ill with pneumonia to be moved. Her only hope is the mysterious colony of rats living under the rosebush — rats who, it turns out, escaped from a laboratory able to read, and who are planning something extraordinary. Robert C. O'Brien's Newbery-winning novel is far richer than a talking-animal story: the rats' history at the NIMH laboratory raises real questions about intelligence, dependence and what it means to make your own way, all inside a genuinely gripping rescue. There is peril and the loss of animal characters, handled with weight rather than sensation. For a nine- to twelve-year-old it is a thoughtful, beautifully constructed adventure that treats its reader as capable of big ideas, and it stays with people long after the final, deliberately open page.
If they like this, try these
Chosen by matching age, reading age, tone and subject — not by what is selling.
The Last WildPiers Torday
Asha and the Spirit BirdJasbinder Bilan
HatchetGary Paulsen
Kensuke's KingdomMichael Morpurgo
PaxSara Pennypacker
Or let them write their own.
Nothing gets a child reading like a story they invented themselves. Your child plans the characters and the plot, and we write, illustrate and print it as a real book with their name on the cover as the author.
Find another book
Tell us the age, the reading age and what they like, and we will suggest a handful.