Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

Title: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Author: Robert C. O'Brien
Published: 1971
Genre: Children's book
Pages: 268


That awesome cartoon movie about mice and super-intelligent rats which you saw as a kid and it gave you nightmares? This is it! Legend tells that my parents took little brother and me to see this in the movies, but it was so scary we had to leave halfway through. A few years later we got it on VCR tape, and watched it many times.

If you haven't heard of Mrs. Frisby (or Brisby in the movie) and the rats of NIMH, it's... well, it's about Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH. Spring has come, and Mrs. Frisby, a widowed mouse, mother of four little kids, has to get ready to move her family to their summer home, away from under the oncoming plowing of the field. But one of the kids, little Timothy, becomes ill with pneumonia, and is too sick to get out of bed, let alone move over the field. So Mrs. Frisby goes to look for help, and is eventually sent to talk with the rats living under the rosebush. There isn't much time, the farmer's getting his tractor ready already, but luckily the rats come up with a plan.

I watched the movie again a few months back, and was still a little scared at points, even though I knew how things would turn out. And I'm glad I read the book, too. It's mainly a children's book, but definitely the kind that adults can read as well. It doesn't talk down to the reader, and even though I still knew how things would turn out (even though they changed a few things for the movie), it was full of suspense. 


"You are joking, sir; you are not serious. No rat could move my house. It is far too heavy, much too big."
"The rats on Mr. Fitzgibbon's farm have - things - ways - you know nothing about. They are not like the rest of us. They are not, I think, even like most other rats. They work at night, in secret. Mrs. Frisby, do you know their main entrance?"
"In the rosebush? Yes."