Is this book perfect, no. But you can't help but care about the protagonists in 'The Great and the Small' and the arduous trials that they endure.

And yes, I have a soft spot for anthropomorphic tales. Give me bunnies, or dogs, or mice, or pigs with human emotions and I'm on board.

The illustrations are also fabulous and certainly add a lot to the mix.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately it’s not the book for me. DNF @ 17%.

I have mixed feelings about rodents... I've had mice as pets and friends who kept perfectly wonderful ratties as pets. Wild ones leave me tormented...set traps, live and let live?? Gah! Life is so complex! I loved this story. I hate people using animals in labs and was happy to learn live frogs (and other animals) are no longer used as science in middle schools ( I hated that in jr. high. What a horrible waste of innocent life...to say nothing of the trauma it induced in us kids! What were adults thinking??) This story is quite the adventure and history lesson. I think classes could benefit from the reading of this book.

This book has great illustrations and it's written in a way that reminds me of the tragic tale of Watership Downs. It's a clean read and I already love domestic rats, so I very much enjoyed this book. It does cover diseases and I think the time frame is either fictional, from history, or dystopian in nature. It actually doesn't matter, because the book is so good, who cares when it was, just that this is a fascinating read.

I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from Net Galley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own and this review is left of my own free will.

There’s a lot of tonal dissonance in this book. It’s frightfully violent at times, with a simple middle-school level plot that’s executed quite well. In short, exactly what I would have freaking loved as a read of disturbing books at 14 years old. I read The Shining in 8th grade and I loved it.

This book made me glad that I saved a baby rat from my cat.

This review will be quite comprehensive because I have a lot to say about this fantastic book. Although this book is a often an allegory of Stalin’s purges within his government, spiced up by the return of the Black Death.

The premise
“Every rat is equal! Every nest for all”

The premise is quite complex, especially because of the rat hierarchy. Fin is a “pup” (teenage rat) whose mother and siblings were killed right after his birth. He was taken under the wing of Papa Stalin, the Dictator of the “Tunnels”. The rats have become lethargic and sick to the core about how humans treat them – for experiments and for trapping. And so they decide to spread the Plague. Things only get more complex as the “Uppers” (government rats) get nasty and Fin begins to interact with a human. So here are some important terms to understand to show how fun the book is:

The Council: These refer to the top rats that follow Stalin Papa with total and utterly loyalty. Except for some who oppose, who realise how mad and power-hungry Papa is.

Tunnel Rats: These refer to all the rats who live under Papa’s domain.

Two-legs: Humans.

Plague Rats: Kamikaze Volunteer and Voluntold rats who are purposefully stricken with the “Great Dying” from long ago so that they may bite and spread the disease to two-legs.
There’s a rich, thick layer of lore regarding the Black Plague that the rats both treasure and despise.

On the other side of town we have Ananda, a half-Indian girl who is perpetually ostracized from her school because of her colour and love for the other. And what I mean by that is that she loves books, drawing and being alone.

The characters
Fin: “I loved Pip because he was as tiny as a seed. Seeds can grow into strong trees.”. Fin is blindly loyal to Papa Stalin as he was raised by him, but he starts to see the truth. He is the protagonist in our story.

Papa: “Gratitude is a dog’s disease.”/”Of course you are a good Tunnel Rat. You are my nephew.” Papa Stalin is the creepy, slick black patriarch of the rats. He honestly sent tingles up my spine. But he is haunted by deeds done in his disturbing past as well as his horrific present.

Ananda: “Ananda breathed in and smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear. This was one of those little secrets between Ananda and her dad; they’d often sneak more books into the house even though Ananda’s mouther, Perrin, had pronounced a moratorium on buying books until they’d read the ones they already had at home, waiting to be unpacked.” Ananda was a bit of a boring character for me. She’s your typical nerdy teenage girl, who gets ostracized as I mentioned. Obviously saving a rat twice and nursing it back to health during the Bubonic Plague isn’t exactly smart but she’s got heart. Ananda also crushes on a girl named George, but nothing ever comes to fruition between them since George is so heavily underdeveloped.



Scratch: “But he said slow, “It means I was watching the two-legs, seeing what traps they were setting for us. So, I was helping the Tunnels.” Scratch looked puzzled. “The rules said we can’t go in the two-leg territory.” Explained Fin. “Two-legs don’t run under the ceiling.” Hope flickered in Scratches eyes. “That’s good, Fin!” Scratch begins to be a brain-washed rat who only follows the ways of the Tunnel. He begins to change.

Zumi: I love Zumi. She's Scratch's sister. She’s a bad-ass rat that gets the job done and she sticks to her morals no matter what happens in the Tunnels, purges and with the dying rats and two-legs.

Balthazar: “And you’ll see you were a coward,” The old rat stared at Fin with his blind eyes, tears wetting his fur./”The ancient rat raised his face, tears streaming from his eyes. “So uch suffering…for the Plague Rats, for the two-legs!” he wailed. “So much…!” “So sorry.” I love Balthazar; he’s the voice of reason – an old wizened rat who tells the rats not to spread the plague.

Character development
I only included quotes so as not to spoil too much.
“As one person became ill and died, so often did the pestilence poison his entire family, too. Those preparing the body of their loved one, died themselves, leaving all to be buried together….Death struck suddenly, and without mercy. It emptied cities and towns. It seeped through windows and under doors…The afternoon shadows lengthened.”

“War was wrong, Fin wished they could see the Killing Chamber for themselves.” Fin realizes how wrong everything is.

“When it was happy, it laughed. When it was sad, it cried. Just like Fin. How could Fin ever be able to lead another death squad without wondering if the targets were good two-legs or bad ones?” – Fin describing Ananda.

“No! Don’t move, Mister Fin of the Council, Mister Chairman’s nephew! Stay! Be comfortable! Be comfortable while Scratch goes out into the cruel alley! Be comfortable while Scratch goes out into the cruel alley! Be comfortable while Scratch cleans up after Mister Fin! While Scratch cleans up your mess…AGAIN!”

Romance: Can you feel the love tonight
There’s a lot of development here. It starts with “Fin glared at her.”Because she was dying, Mumi, or Fumi or whatever your name is!” To “Zumi was argumentative, bossy and most likely a Wrecker. She was also intelligent, loyal and incredibly brave. And Fin loved her.”

I made it a point to mention romance because non-human romance is such an interesting take on things. The romance was definitely a slow burner and in the background for the majority of the book. I won’t spoil anything, all I can say it’s exactly like:

The Little Things I loved

I really, really loved that Fin struggled with whether or not spreading the Plague was the right thing to do.

What I really liked about this book was how each chapter began with a quote by Stalin or a person writing during the time of the Bubonic Plague. Here are some of my favourite quotes:

“Death solves all difficulties.” – Stalin



“Their greediness, their scorn and malice were asking to be punished.” – John of Reading, 1346.



“Because man is made of flesh and bone, let him become ashes and dust.” – Gabriele de’ Mussis, 1348

“Some believed that the way to keep free of the plague was to drink heavily, making merry all day and night” – Giovanni Boccaccio.

“People make friends with sin and wrongdoing, while the children die for the sins of their parents.”

“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns why should we let them have ideas?” - Stalin


Critique: Not that much

What I would have loved is a little more development of Ananda’s mother, Perrin. And even her father, Tom, too. Tom has a character arc, but it largely plays out in the background.
I also found it strange that the dialogue of the humans was so stiff and stilted while the rat dialogue flowed wonderfully. E.g. “Yeah. She breathed “But I saved a helpless mouse from being squashed like a bug.It got away, and that’s what counts.”

So much thought was put into this book for it to be written from the perspective of rats, so Ms Balsara really deserves all the praise she can get.

I’m giving this five stars because it is absolutely perfect for the age group it is aimed at. This is what young readers should use as a bridge to adult fiction and so many people need to start getting into adult fiction.

Conclusion
I’d recommend this book over Animal Farm any day. There’s a direct allegory to Stalin, but the rest of the story is so unique and beautiful that it’s well worth the read.

This was a really really tough one for me to stop reading. I absolutely love the voice of this tale. It reminds me of a solid mix between The Rats of Nimh and a story one of my CPs is working on that will hopefully soon be out in the universe.

But, I DNF'd at 8% and here's why:
First, there's a rogue image on my kindle version that keeps popping up. It's nearly all black and cuts lines in half, so it kept stalling the flow as I read. This was frustrating for such an engaging book.

Second, this story could use one more strong editorial pass. Everything's aligned left with no indentation, and there's a lot of filtering and misplaced words. This also caused me to stumble quite a bit.

Although this tale feels more like a darker MG story, I think readers who liked The Secret of Nimh or even a darker lower YA will love this tale.

I definitely plan on picking up a future edition when everything's a teensy bit cleaner with the prose and imagery. The author has an engaging voice, and I'll be checking out some of their other works as well.

I enjoyed this book, reminded me a bit of the depford mice, but much much much darker. I really enjoyed the different take on this story - we got both sides of the tale from both the rats and the humans. We would have a lot to worry about if rats were sentient - it did make me pause for thought i'll admit.
Well written, and a good story. I'd like more...

Like a 3.5 for me.

Novel premise. Intriguing look into the politics and drama in a rat community. (It took me awhile to get a sense of the time period in which this book takes place. We start off in with a gargoyle and an open air market which feels like we're in the past, although the reality is it takes place in a modern world parallel to our own)

Our tether to the real world is the girl Ananda. I felt like her parts of the story were the weaker than the rest. Compared to the high stakes drama of the rat world, her cartooning pictures of a bully at school and doing a completely ridiculous thing with a rat in a time of plague, seemed pretty fluffy and (sadly at times) a bit boring. I get how she figures into the larger narrative, I'm just not sure I found her perspective all that interesting. Perhaps a kid would disagree though and find viewing the story through her lens to be a more accessible entry point.

The rat story, on the other hand, is fast moving, exciting, and thought-provoking, holding its own against other great allegorical animal adventures written before it. Clearly the author understands rodents and has studied their behavior. Layering those behaviors onto a complex tale of relationships, power, and politics, made for some great storytelling. Loved the idea of rats knowingly weaponizing a plague and the ethical questions that poses to both the characters in the book and the reader.

Without alienating children, this book gets you thinking about some thorny topics. How is the way we wage war related to our lack of empathy for our opponents? How do we know when a leader has passed the point of caring for their constituents and is simply acting in the interest of self preservation and ego? What are the ethical implications of using rats in medical testing (Does our behavior make humans on some level worthy of equally painful payback?) Like most good children's books, it isn't until we shrink these questions down and apply them to another living ecosystem (in this example, a community of rats), that we can finally see them clearly.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Excellent well written story. I would highly recommend this book to everyone, especially those interested in human and animal interaction. The ending was touching.

My 11 year old daughter read this one and absolutely loved it! She has rats as pets so she was really excited to get a copy of this book. Rodent heroes for the win! Five stars with a high recommendation for all readers her age and above.

Definitely not a book that I would have picked up on my own, but an interesting story nonetheless. Balsara wrote a story that is super unique and went in a totally different direction than I was expecting.

Nice character building along with a good plot made this a pretty easy book to get through.

An interesting premise but unfortunately I was not able to connect with the material.

In the young adult novel, The Great & the Small, author A. T. Balsara draws readers down into the dark maze of tunnels that lie deep below a thriving market of the “two-legs.” There, a colony of rats is divided into the “uppers” and the “lowers,” led by the charismatic and dangerous Papa, Chairman of the Council of Rats. Enraged by centuries of abuse and murder at the hands of the two-legs, Papa proposes to wage war by reintroducing the Black Death, this time as a resistant superbug with the power to wipe out modern humanity. As the battle rages, Papa’s beloved nephew and the hero of the story, Fin, must decide for himself the true meaning of loyalty and love. Reminiscent of George Orwell’s Animal Farm with its social dynamics and piercing critique of Stalin, The Great & the Small weaves a compelling tale of terror and heroism, oppression and rebellion, revealing complex relationships and many-shaded characters as worthy as those in Watership Down (Richard Adams). Balsara’s black & white illustrations enhance the story and mood. With its forays into some of the darkest chapters of human history, The Great & the Small is thought-provoking, superior fiction, recommended for book clubs, classrooms, and as an under-the-covers-with-a-flashlight, good old-fashioned literary romp. Ages 12 and up.

A big thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. I am voluntarily reviewing this book. First time reading this author. It was my understanding that this was a children's book. In my opinion this is not a story for a. child. It was overly complicated, and rather violent. I read books to my kids at nighttime-this didn't seem like one of those type of books. It didn't help the formatting was messed up. A storyline about rats and the plague seemed odd for a child's book. Let me know what you think