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  • Published: 2 July 2018
  • ISBN: 9780241326350
  • Imprint: Puffin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $17.99

I Was a Rat! Or, The Scarlet Slippers



An intriguing and exciting tale of chance and misfortune, sumptuously repackaged with new illustrations from INSERT ILLUSTRATOR HERE

Featuring wonderful new illustrations from Peter Bailey, this intriguing and exciting tale of chance and misfortune by multi award-winning Philip Pullman, is perfect for readers young and old.

I was a Rat! Roger insists, and insists . . . In fact, when Bob the cobbler and his washerwoman wife, Joan, find the young boy abandoned on their doorstep, these are the only words he says. And he does have ratty behaviour, it's true.

Staying with Bob and Joan, however, Roger learns quickly to behave more like a human child. They try to find his parents, but the orphanage, police and hospital all have nothing on their records about a lost boy in the city. What is the truth? As more and more people find out about Roger the mysterious rat-boy he faces more and more danger. But sometimes help comes from the most unexpected of places . . .

  • Published: 2 July 2018
  • ISBN: 9780241326350
  • Imprint: Puffin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $17.99

About the author

Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman was born in Norwich and educated in England, Zimbabwe, Australia and Wales. He studied English at Exeter College, Oxford.

His first children's book, Count Karlstein, was published in 1982. To date, he has published thirty-three books, read by children and adults alike. His most famous work is the His Dark Materials trilogy. These books have been honoured by several prizes including the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's Book Prize, and (for The Amber Spyglass) the Whitbread Book of the Year Award - the first time that prize had been given to a children's book. Pullman has received numerous other awards, including the Eleanor Farjeon Award and the Astrid Lindgren Award. He was knighted in the 2019 New Year's Honours List for Services to Literature.

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Praise for I Was a Rat! Or, The Scarlet Slippers

[A] perfectly shaped story . . . a fairy tale, an adventure, a parody and certainly a book that shines

Literacy and Learning

Fairy tale, satire, slapstick humour and suspenseful melodrama . . . a glorious tale

Guardian

A comic genius of children's fiction

The Times