Lenny Lemmon and the Invincible Rat

Ben Davis's Lenny Lemmon and the Invincible Rat is a very silly school story for 6 year olds about a boy who brings a real rat in for Olden Days School.

What happens

Lenny's class, 5B, have NEVER beaten 5A at anything. 5A line up perfectly, sing like angels and win every time. So when the Head promises a prize to the best class on Olden Days School, Lenny has a plan.

The plan is in a box. It's Ratty, and Lenny found him by the bins over the road.

Ms Bottley has turned into a shouty teacher from hundreds of years ago for the day (bonnet and all). She isn't thrilled. And when Ratty gets out of his cage, the classroom goes completely bananas. Amelia Kelly ends up standing on a table and her homemade gruel gets a rat in it.

Then a new girl called Jess walks in, scrapes her nails down the blackboard and offers to catch Ratty. For ten House Points. (The school doesn't have House Points.)

It's all told by Lenny, and he's very sure of himself. He's always in the Head's office, he tells you, and not because he's naughty or anything. You'll probably spot the gap between what Lenny thinks is happening and what's really happening long before he does, and that's where a lot of the giggles come from.

It isn't all chaos though. Lenny's best friend Sam worries about everything and cares about everyone. Somewhere in the middle of the rat hunt the two of them fall out, and Lenny has to work out what his friend has been trying to tell him. It's a gentle bit of friendship stuff tucked inside a lot of slapstick.

There's plenty to make a young reader squeal, too. Rat droppings that turn out to be Coco Pops. A pan of sauce all over the school kitchen floor. A dad whose inventions always go wrong, including a talking toilet.

Is it too much for a sensitive reader? Probably not. Jess is very keen on getting rid of Ratty for good, but Lenny won't hear of it, and it all stays cartoonish.

What to read next

If they enjoy a narrator who is completely certain his plan is brilliant, they might like Attack of the Giant Slugs next. Jack Beechwhistle reckons he's saved the world about twenty-seven times, and he'd quite like you to know about it.