Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat
posted in book challenge, fantasy, book review, children's literature |
“It’s the meanest thing in the world,” said Emmy severely, “to ignore someone. It makes a person feel like she doesn’t even exist.”
When Emmy says these words to the Rat, she’s speaking from experience. Invisibility might make for a handy superpower, but it’s not handy to feel invisible all of the time.
“Emmy was a good girl. At least she tried very hard to be good.” Despite Emmy’s being a good girl–getting good grades, obeying the adults in her life, and attending an overwhelming number of after school activities without protest–her parents keep leaving her in the care of her nanny Miss Barmy for protracted periods of time. Emmy convinces herself (with the help of Miss Barmy’s not-so-subtle jibes) that her parents’ absence is her fault; if she only did better in school or won more trophies, then surely her parents would not leave so much. But all of her striving is to no avail; ever since her parents received her Great-Great-Uncle William’s fortune they are like different people–people who hardly seem to recall they have a daughter.
When Emmy makes friends with the class Rat she begins to realize that she’s not invisible. She also begins to realize that she’s in the midst of a mystery. Bizarreness, dark humor, and contact with rodent breeds increase as Emmy begins to ferret out the nefarious explanation for other people’s failure to notice her (chinchilla effect…).
As Emmy makes friends, she gains confidence in herself–in her abilities and in her worthiness of her parents love. With Joe Benson and the Rat at her side, she discovers the value and necessity of friendship: “Friends are people who help when things go wrong; but Miss Barmy had wanted her to be alone, without any help at all.”
Jonell creates a world replete with rodents, mystery, and danger through which her heroine Emmy must navigate in order to survive. What with the nasty nanny, the sardonic rodent, the dark plot twists and turns, and the lone child who overcomes it all, Jonell’s story will likely find many child fans.
For more works with a touch of the bizarre, talking animals, and/or mostly absent parents try: Eric Laster’s The Adventures of Erasmus Twiddle: Grmkville’s Famous and Talented Not-Detective, M.T. Anderson Whales on Stilts or The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen, Philip Ardagh’s Eddie Dickens trilogy, Georgia Bing’s Molly Moon, Ellen Potter’s Olivia Kidney, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Edith Nesbit’s Psammead trilogy (The Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and The Story of the Amulet), or pretty much anything and everything by Roald Dahl.
