Lynne Jonell

Emmy used to live with her loving parents in a small apartment over a bookstore, but when they inherited a big house and a lot of money, and Miss Jane Barmy became Emmy's nanny, her parents started to travel to far-flung places - without Emmy. And no one in Emmy's new school notices her - it's like she's not even there. But when Emmy frees the class pet, a rat, her life gets much more interesting...

With flavors of The Mysterious Benedict Society (narcolepsy), Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH show more (clever rodent societies), The Witches (shrinking to rat-size), and Bruce Coville's Magic Shop books, EMMY is incredibly imaginative and clever.

Quotes

"It's the meanest thing in the world," said Emmy severely, to ignore someone. It makes a person feel like she doesn't even exist." (17)

What was the use of trying to do everything she was supposed to when nobody ever cared anyway? (27)

"Suddenly, money meant nothing to them, except for the good it could do. They no longer cared about trying to make people envy them - they thought about making people feel valued instead." (Professor Capybara, 275)

She'd always thought it would be wonderful to be a grown-up - but not all at once. Not if she had to miss everything in between. (281) show less

The ultimate child's fantasy: When adults are villainous, greedy, incompetent or otherwise useless, it's the kids who set the world right. Christina, who's been overly protected by her scientist father (she's never left the grounds of her home), leads a troop of abused and neglected orphans who have been forced to mine a lucrative energy substance called zoom. The story is quick-paced and engaging and almost every chapter ends in a cliff-hanger. A great book for gifted readers, reluctant show more readers, and fans of orphan-exploitation fiction. (Lemony Snicket, anyone?) show less

Duncan McKay lives with his mother on the island of Arvidia and knows how to speak and understand the language of cats. His fearful mother is full of secrets, including information about his deceased father and mysteriously does not want him to excel at anything. In addition to Duncan’s questions about his identity, kittens on the island are disappearing, the king is seriously ill, and the successor to the throne, princess Lydia, is missing which means the evil earl could become king. show more Drugged and tricked, Duncan finds himself on a dangerous sea voyage uncovering facts about himself, his father, the missing kittens, and the plight of his island home. This rousing, thoroughly enjoyable, adventurous romp, told in wonderful prose, will have older tweens, cat lovers, and others wishing this book had many more chapters.

Sharyn H. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.

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“It’s the meanest thing in the world,” said Emmy severely, “to ignore someone. It makes a person feel like she doesn’t even exist.”

When Emmy says these words to the Rat, she’s speaking from experience. Invisibility might make for a handy superpower, but it’s not handy to feel invisible all of the time.

“Emmy was a good girl. At least she tried very hard to be good.” Despite Emmy’s being a good girl–getting good grades, obeying the adults in her life, and attending an show more overwhelming number of after school activities without protest–her parents keep leaving her in the care of her nanny Miss Barmy for protracted periods of time. Emmy convinces herself (with the help of Miss Barmy’s not-so-subtle jibes) that her parents’ absence is her fault; if she only did better in school or won more trophies, then surely her parents would not leave so much. But all of her striving is to no avail; ever since her parents received her Great-Great-Uncle William’s fortune they are like different people–people who hardly seem to recall they have a daughter.

When Emmy makes friends with the class Rat she begins to realize that she’s not invisible. She also begins to realize that she’s in the midst of a mystery. Bizarreness, dark humor, and contact with rodent breeds increase as Emmy begins to ferret out the nefarious explanation for other people’s failure to notice her (chinchilla effect…).

As Emmy makes friends, she gains confidence in herself–in her abilities and in her worthiness of her parents love. With Joe Benson and the Rat at her side, she discovers the value and necessity of friendship: “Friends are people who help when things go wrong; but Miss Barmy had wanted her to be alone, without any help at all.”

Jonell creates a world replete with rodents, mystery, and danger through which her heroine Emmy must navigate in order to survive. What with the nasty nanny, the sardonic rodent, the dark plot twists and turns, and the lone child who overcomes it all, Jonell’s story will likely find many child fans.

For more works with a touch of the bizarre, talking animals, and/or mostly absent parents try: Eric Laster’s The Adventures of Erasmus Twiddle: Grmkville’s Famous and Talented Not-Detective, M.T. Anderson Whales on Stilts or The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen, Philip Ardagh’s Eddie Dickens trilogy, Georgia Bing’s Molly Moon, Ellen Potter’s Olivia Kidney, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Edith Nesbit’s Psammead trilogy (The Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and The Story of the Amulet), or pretty much anything and everything by Roald Dahl. show less