Summertime Reading for Rat Lovers
The story behind these books is very simple, but Rowling turns it into a glorious, complicated masterpiece of magic and mystery. Harry Potter is a young boy who grows up in an ordinary, boring, crude family unaware that he is descended from magic blood and just about the most famous wizard around. He lives a pretty normal life up until his eleventh birthday, when he is flooded by an avalanche of letters announcing that he has been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Reluctantly he is allowed to enroll, and the adventures start. Unlike most kids, he loves boarding school, as it gives him a chance to get away from his miserable family and into a whole different life of spells, real friends, Quidditch matches and lots of strange goings-on. Vacations are a bummer, but there's always the next school year, and the next book, to look forward to!
Neverwhere
by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman writes stuff in a tone similar to Pratchett's, but his stuff is much, much darker. Or maybe it just seems darker, as this story takes place mostly in the sewers and subways under London. And, since there are sewers, there must be rats, right? The rats in this story are not scary dwellers of mysterious places, but are honored and treated with a great deal of respect by the denizens of this neverworld. The rats are among the characters, who do what they can to help the heroine, Lady Door, as she tries to make sense of the mysterious, brutal murders of her family members.
The story is about the meeting of two different worlds - the everyday aboveground busy world of London and the shadowy world of people that inhabit the cracks and crannies of reality. Richard Mayhew, the main character, is thrust from the first world right smack into the midst of the second when he stops to help an injured woman, who turns out to be Door. He chooses to help her and is sucked into a whole different dimension where rats have human servants known as rat-speakers, Floating Markets are held in deserted London landmarks at night and angels aren't always what they seem. This is a richly detailed story with a sense of humor that just won't quit and enough rats running around underfoot to make most rat lovers very happy.
Note: If you like Neverwhere and Pratchett's books, you'll probably
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