The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents is a sharp, funny fantasy for 9 year olds about a talking cat, a gang of very clever rats and a con that's about to go wrong.

What happens

Maurice is a streetwise cat with hardly any ears left and a lot of scars (and a very high opinion of himself). One day he looked in a puddle and realised he could think. The rats who lived on the rubbish heap behind the wizards' university woke up clever at the same time.

So Maurice came up with a plan. The rats sneak into a town and cause a "plague". They squeak, they steal and they widdle in the flour. Then a boy with a pipe turns up and leads them all out, and the town pays him to do it. Then they all meet in the bushes and count the money.

But the rats have started thinking for themselves. Peaches has worked out that Maurice has been keeping the gold. Dangerous Beans, a tiny white rat who's nearly blind, dreams of an island where rats can live in peace. They want this to be the last time.

The last town is Bad Blintz. And straight away something's off. Bread costs a fortune and people queue for it with bits of paper. The rat-catchers have very clean boots. And under the streets there are rat tunnels everywhere but no rats at all!

It's hilarious in a very Pratchett way. Maurice argues that taking government money has probably stopped a few wars. The rats name themselves after words on old tins, so there's a rat called Dangerous Beans and one called Delicious. There's a girl called Malicia who's sure that everything is a story.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The rats' whole world is traps and poison, and there's a Trap Disposal Squad who take traps apart for a living. The rat-catchers are properly menacing and smell of beer, and one leans in and tells the boy he'll be fine "if you grow up". So it probably suits a confident reader who likes a bit of danger with their jokes.

There's a lot of thinking going on under the fun too. Who are the real rats here? It's the sort of book you'll want to talk about afterwards.

What to read next

If they love a whole tiny civilisation with its own stories and squabbles, try The Carpet People, Pratchett's tribes living down among the hairs of a carpet.