Bookish Tuesday: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Vacations are always the perfect time for a good Pratchett book, and last week was no exception. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is a book taking place in Discworld, although it isn't really a part of the main series of books, since it is an off shoot kid's branch like the Wee Free Men series.

Like a lot of other Discworld books, Maurice pokes fun at the idea of kid's stories and particularly that of the pied piper. See, Maurice is a talking cat who hangs out with a group of talking rats. They, along with a dumb-looking kid, go from town to town "removing" the terrible rodent population. As they move on to their final heist in the town of Bad Blintz, things begin to go wrong in a way that only Terry Pratchett can do. Maurice is a fun character to read with all his little cat habits and ways of thinking and I really hope that he (and the rats) get some more appearances within Discworld.

The book is just as funny as the adult Discworld books, if not moreso than some of them, and was awarded the 2001 Carnegie medal (although I don't know what that means, it sounds pretty good). Let's just say that The Amazing Maurice is definitely a good stepping stone for getting into the Discworld books, something that everyone should be reading.