I Was A Rat by Philip Pullman

     Wow!!

Just finished a brilliant book-‘I Was A Rat’ by Philip Pullman.

Pullman did a brilliant job of writing in the third person, keeping me in suspense the whole way through. I kept wondering and wanting to know: “How did the rat become a boy?”

I love the way that the story moves to different scenes and comes together at the end, finally bringing the answer. The conflict escalates as Roger, in his confusion, moves from place to place.

 I also love the way that Pullman uses humour. The narrative intelligently developed, which drew me into the story, and intermittent sparks of humour punctuate the scene, just as I was least expecting it.

The story also has a political side to it, with a powerful use of satire. This engaged me on a deeper level and brought an underlying chill to the story.

I think that students from around the Year 4/5 year level would love to read this book. There are a number of activities you could do with students studying this book, including looking at how the author uses humour and satire in the narrative.

As there are newspaper articles written throughout the book about the Princess and the ‘Rat-Boy’,  cross-curricular lessons in critical analysis of media could be taught  as well as looking at the text structure of newspaper articles.

http://www.philip-pullman.com/

 

                                                                   Alex