Review- Racso and the rats of NIMH

Racso and the Rats of NIMH by Jane Leslie Conly

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It would be easy to be harsh on this book because of its obvious inferiority to the original (written by the author's father). All told, it's a well written, fun children's book that lacks the depth and sophistication of Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH.

The Racso of the title is a city rat who makes his way to join the intelligent rat colony established at the end of the first book, to learn how to read. He meets Timothy, the mouse from the first story, and they have a series of adventures before joining up with the others. Later on, the colony is threatened by the development of a dam, which will flood the valley where the rats live.

The rats are anthropomorphized to such an extent that they are practically little humans, and their abilities are magical (including, amongst other things, communicating with all other animals and learning computer programming in a few weeks from photocopied manuals). Racso is an annoying hero, essentially, a teen 'rebel' from any generic American school drama. There are plenty of cheap plot twists too, such as the explanation for the two dead rats at the end of the first book, which makes no sense.

Despite all of those things, however, I did enjoy the book. It's very easy to read and short enough not to overstay its welcome. Enough of the first book remains in the sequel for it to be worth going back to.



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