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The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

AnimalsFantasy
Pages
368
Published
2001
Language
English

Synopsis

Maurice is a talking cat who has assembled a gang of talking rats and a stupid-looking kid to run a variant of the Pied Piper scam — the rats infest towns, Maurice's boy pipes them away, and everyone splits the money. Until they arrive in Bad Blintz, where there are no rats to infest but the townspeople are starving, and something terrible is living under the town. The first Discworld novel written for children, winner of the 2001 Carnegie Medal.

Prose complexity
5/10

Vibe

FunnyAdventurousEmotionalWhimsical
Found FamilyMorally GreyComing of AgeSurvival

Genres

Animals Fantasy High Fantasy Middle Grade Comic Fiction Humor Science Fiction Young Adult

About the author

T
Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) was an English author best known for the Discworld series, a sequence of forty-one comic fantasy novels set on a flat world carried through space on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle. Across four decades, the Discworld grew from a parody of sword-and-sorcery fantasy into one of the most sustained works of social satire in English literature, examining politics, religion, science, gender, race, capitalism, and the nature of stories themselves. Pra...

Characters

MauriceProtagonist

A talking cat who has built a profitable scam and is starting to develop inconvenient feelings like guilt and responsibility.

Malicia GrimSupporting

A girl who has read too many stories and believes she knows how they work — useful and dangerous in equal measure.

Dangerous BeansSupporting

The philosophical leader of the educated rats — small, nearly blind, and wholly concerned with questions of ethics and what it means to be a person.

PeachesSupporting

One of the educated rats who serves as Dangerous Beans' companion and the rats' most outward-looking member.

All characters in The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Frequently asked questions

  • What award did The Amazing Maurice win?

    The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents won the Carnegie Medal in 2001 — the UK's most prestigious award for children's literature. It was Pratchett's first Carnegie Medal and the first Discworld novel written explicitly for younger readers.

  • Is The Amazing Maurice a Discworld novel?

    Yes — it is set on the Discworld and references it explicitly. However, it has no connection to the main Discworld sub-series and is self-contained, making it an excellent entry point for younger readers or adults new to the series.

  • What fairy tale does it parody?

    The Amazing Maurice is a retelling of the Pied Piper of Hamelin — but with the Piper, the rats, and the cat all being self-aware players in a scam rather than magical figures. Pratchett deconstructs the fairy tale while telling it.

  • Is the novel suitable for adults who don't normally read children's books?

    Yes. Like much of Pratchett's work, The Amazing Maurice operates on multiple levels. The ethics of consciousness, the nature of stories, and the question of what it means to be a person are fully adult themes wrapped in an accessible adventure.

  • Was The Amazing Maurice adapted?

    Yes — The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents was adapted as an animated film in 2022, featuring voice performances including Hugh Laurie as Maurice. The film received positive reviews.

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