The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Terry Pratchett. 2001. HarperCollins. 242 pages. [Source: Library] [Animal Fantasy; MG Fiction] [4 stars]
First sentence: Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats, and--
But there was more to it than that. As the Amazing Maurice said, it
was just a story about people and rats. And the difficult part of it was
deciding who the people were, and who were the rats.
But Malicia Grim said it was a story about stories.
It began--part of it began--on the mail coach that came over the mountains from the distant cities of the plain.
Premise/plot: What is this one about? Maurice has a scheme to get rich. He travels
with a human piper, Keith, and 'his' educated rodents (rats). (Both the
rats and the cat can talk.) They go from town to town--or village to
village--though never in places too close together. First, they'll be an
outbreak of rats. Then Keith will appear as a rat piper to save the day
and lead the rats away. For a fee, of course. They split the money
between them.
Readers see their "last" adventure in the town of Bad Blintz. All does not go according to plan...
My thoughts: I loved The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. I just LOVED it. I loved the characters. Maurice, the cat, and many of the rats--including Hamnpork, Dangerous Beans, Peaches, Darktan, Sardines, etc. And the humans, Keith and Malicia. I loved seeing these characters interact with one another. I loved the story too! It was such a great adventure story. And the writing--of course--I just loved it! Terry Pratchett is a new favorite of mine!!!
One of my favorite things about this one is Mr. Bunnsy Has An Adventure.
These rats LOVE the book Mr. Bunnsy Has An Adventure. And many of the
chapters begin with a quote from this book.
One day, when he was naughty, Mr. Bunnsy looked over the hedge into Farmer Fred's field and saw it was full of fresh green lettuces. Mr. Bunnsy, however, was not full of lettuces. This did not seem fair. (1)I would definitely recommend this one!
Mr. Bunnsy had a lot of friends in Furry Bottom. But what Mr. Bunnsy was friendly with more than anything else was food. (20)
The important thing about adventures, thought Mr. Bunnsy, was that they should not be so long as to make you miss mealtimes. (49)
There were big adventures and small adventures, Mr. Bunnsy knew. You didn't get told what size they were going to be before you started. Sometimes you could have a big adventure even when you were standing still. (79)
Favorite quotes:
There's always a plot. You just have to know where to look.
Malicia leaned against the wall with incredible nonchalance. There was not a click. A panel in the floor did not slide back. "Probably the wrong place," she said. "I'll just rest my arm innocently on this coat hook." A sudden door in the wall completely failed to happen. "Of course, it'd help if there was an ornate candlestick," said Malicia. "They're always a surefire secret-passage lever. Every adventurer knows that." "There isn't a candlestick," said Maurice. "I know. Some people totally fail to have any idea of how to design a proper secret passage," said Malicia. She leaned against another piece of wall, which had no effect whatsoever.
Cats don't go around feeling sorry! Or guilty! We never regret anything! Do you know what it feels like, saying, 'Hello food, can you talk?' That's not how a cat is supposed to behave!
If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story.
A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.
"We don't want to be like the first mouse!" shouted the rats. "Right! What mouse do we want to be like?" "The second mouse, Darktan!" said the rats, like people who'd heard this lesson dinned into them many times. "Right! And why do we want to be like the second mouse?" "Because the second mouse gets the cheese, Darktan!"
© 2024 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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