Children's Books Too Cool for School

When we last saw Emmy, everything in her life was just about perfect. After all, her horrible Nannny, Miss Barmy, had been turned into a rat along with her odious companion Cheswick Vole. Emmy's parents had returned from their endless vacation, and Emmy had finally made some friends.

However, all was not as sunny in Emmy's world as it seemed. For one thing, even if Miss Barmy is only a rat, she's still a horrible manipulative rat. And what of the Home for Troubled Girls she once mentioned to Emmy, along with all the poor girls that Miss Barmy's nannying tactics caused to disappear long ago?

And when will Emmy make some real friends. After all, Joe is nice, but he's off playing soccer a lot. His little brother Thomas is a dear, but he is a little brother. And the animals of Rodent City? Well they don't count at all, do they? In fact, Emmy wishes they'd stop coming around so much, so that she can appear to the outside world as a more "normal" girl.

It is this desire to be "normal" that causes Emmy to stand by when some of her new "friends" pelt one of her rat pals with a rock, setting in motion a chain of events that causes Emmy to become isolated while Miss Barmy, the rat, dazzles the residents of rodent city and offers to host a beauty pageant for them.

While the many intricacies, twists, and turns of this sequel to Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat were well-done, I can't say I enjoyed this read as much as the first in the series. I accused the first of being a little preachy vis a vis the issue of children being enrolled in too many extracurricular activities. If the first was a bit preachy, than this one was a collection of sermons. The whole message about "true friendship," and values was way to heavy handed. We didn't need poor Sissy the rat to be stoned in order to drive the point home! (Alright, I realized the stoning serves other purposes, but Emmy's internal narrative about her guilt over the incident really got boring.) I did really enjoy the plot about the "Home for Trouble Girls," although I never did quite understand what was up with Miss Barmy's mother.

The beauty pageant plot was both a little odd (I'm not sure why it was such a temptation for the rodents, for instance), and again the message about internal vs. external beauty was a little heavy handed. Meanwhile, Miss Barmy's "plot" really paled in comparison to the last one. I don't want to ruin anything for anyone, but let's just say it didn't really compare at all to the plot of the first book -- namely to cause Emmy to disappear and usurp her position as inheritor of an estate.

The only thing that really pleased me was the continuation of the really cool flip-book margin illustrations.

The upsides are that this will have broad appeal for ages 8-10. And that kids always like sequels more than I ever do!