Lieb, Josh Ratscalibur, 170 pgs. Penguin, 2015, $16.99. Language: G (0 swears 0 Fs); Mature Content: G; Violence: PG.
When Joey moved to the big city, his uncle gives him a pet rat, but the rat turns out to be a “ratgician” named Gondorff who is fatally injured and magically transforms Joey into a rat, sending him on a quest to find King Uther and a squirrel who can save the kingdom of Avalon.
A nod to “The Once and Future King”, this short adventure uses the Excalibur tale to tell a modern story of rats vs. crows. There is a lot of allusion to classic literature that I think might be lost on the younger reader and that may make the reading cumbersome for them. But, the story is engaging and exciting, with good magic, bad magic (ragic, squagic, depends on your species) If the readers are a bit young for Redwall, this is a good intro to “Rodents with Swords” genre.
EL - ADVISABLE Lisa Librarian
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