Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C O’Brien

I had heard of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, but somehow got through my childhood without ever having read it.  My 11 –year and 9-year old sons were reading it for their youth book club this last month. I read it with 9-year old Daniel in the evenings using the flip-flop technique.  I would read a page and then he would read one.

 

Mrs. Frisby is a widowed mouse with four young children living in a field.  Her youngest son, Timothy is very ill and unfortunately it is time to move to summer quarters before Farmer Fitzgibbon starts to plow his fields.  Mrs. Frisby seeks help amongst her neighbors and is told by a wise owl to get help from the Rats.  When Mrs. Frisby meets the rats, she discovers far more about them and her late husband than she had ever imagined. Will they be able to save Timothy before the plow comes?

Daniel and I both greatly enjoyed the story as did Kile as well.  We had to have a discussion about it after we all finished.  I fell asleep one night and couldn’t read further so Daniel took the book and finished it himself that night, I had to catch up the next day to see how it ended!  It was a great heroic tale of Mrs. Frisby and her love for her children, but the entire rats sequence was very intriguing. 

Daniel loved finding out where they came from, but was a bit stressed out about the more suspenseful parts of the novel.  We still want to know who the mysterious two rats were in the end!  I really liked the ambiguous ending and the questions of ethics and morality that permeated the story.

Overall, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH is a wonderful fantasy novel that will delight readers of all ages.

Book Source:  The Kewaunee Pubic Library