The Highway Rat

A comic homage to Alfred Noyes’s 1906 narrative poem ‘The Highwayman’, Julia Donaldson’s The Highway Rat echoes to dramatically witty effect Noyes’s rhythmic cadences (‘And the highwayman came riding— /Riding—riding— /The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door’) as her Highway Rat goes riding – riding – to accost and rob travellers of their food. Outwitted by a clever duck, the wicked rat eventually ends up humbly sweeping the floor in a cake shop while the other animals are now free to travel the highway in safety.

This moral tale is wonderfully illustrated in Axel Scheffler’s tautly uneasy style in which landscape scenes are supplemented with telling vignettes that draw out the detail of the Highway rat’s perfidious deeds. Scheffler’s quivering line and anxiously expressive eyes add to the drama that will keep young readers in suspense. Superb fun!