The Highway Rat

Product Information

My novel THE GIANTS AND THE JONESES is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic PRINCESS MIRROR-BELLE who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old. The story is ripe with drama and excitement and these features are enhanced by detailed illustrations. The Highway Rat’ (2016) is another first rate little adventure for younger readers from the accomplished pen of Julia Donaldson, with the usual and lovely accompanying illustrations by Axel Sheffler. They adored the scene towards the end where all the animals receive their food back and were able to share their views on the themes of the book.

Using some of your class as a chorus, a few children as the lead characters and after having made character masks and props in class, The Highway Rat would make a perfect assembly piece. He worked mainly in the commercial industry, with clients including Kinder Bueno, Rennie, Steradent, Jeyes Bloo loo and Persil. A duck is on the road with no food and so the Highway Rat is going to eat the duck, but the duck finds a smart way to outsmart the Rat.A nice rhyme accompanies the book throughout, and it definitely carries a strong moral; don’t be a bully because it’ll catch up to you and you’ll be stuck! poster for the Highway Rat and wrote about the crimes of the rat and why they needed to catch him as soon as possible.

The Highway Rat is an exciting and child friendly book about a mean, greedy and vicious rat that goes round stealing other animal’s food.It is a fantastic read with beautiful illustrations by Alex Scheffler that brings the characters to life, and the use of rollicking rhyme and repetition create a sing song style flow to the tale making the text approachable and engaging for children.

Alongside being an excellent class read, the themes of the book are a starting point for class discussion on stealing, sharing, friendship, kindness and the feelings of the characters. His googly-eyed horse is a pleasure, almost always making eye-contact with the reader and sharing the joke of this evil rat riding on his back.Eventually though, the Highway Rat meets his match in a juicy-looking duck who directs him into a cave where the echo seems to promise food.