Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of NIMH

 Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of NIMH (1971) by Robert C. O'Brien

Mrs. Frisby, a widowed mouse, and her four children split their year between a summer home and a winter home. Currently, they are living in their winter home within a cinder block buried in Farmer Fitzgibbon's field. But days are warming up and soon it will be Moving Day and Mrs. Frisby has a problem. Her youngest son, Timothy, has pneumonia and old Mr. Ages, a mouse who knows a thing or two about medicine, has told her that the young mouse should not be moved for at least three weeks. With the weather warming unusually early, the farmer will be itching to plow his field under and the mice are usually long gone by the time he breaks ground. If they stay, they're bound to be killed when the mechanical monster comes through. If they go, Timothy may die.

When Mrs. Frisby saves Jeremy, the raven from the clutches of the farmer's cat Dragon--he tells her to call on him if she ever needs anything. So, she goes to him for advice. He takes her into the home of an old owl--with Mrs. Frisby trembling in her fur. But when the owl finds out she's the widow Mr. Jonathan Frisby, he loses any thought he might have had about a mouse dinner and directs her to the rats who live under Mr. Fitzgibbon's rose bush. All she needs to do is tell them who her husband was and ask for Nicodemus and he's sure the rats will help her. Mrs. Frisby is bewildered--why should the rats care about Jonathan Frisby's family? But she follows the owl's advice and learns that the rats (and her husband) came from a place called NIMH. Nicodemus tells her an amazing story of their imprisonment there, what happened to them, and how they came to escape...and he and his fellow rats come up with a plan to rescue the mice from the farmer's plow and allow them time to wait until Timothy is well enough to travel.

This is a wonderful children's fantasy novel. Great adventure with some danger and even death--but all of the deaths take place off-stage. I can't believe I missed reading this when I was young. I definitely would have loved it and even in middle-age I found it an absorbing and fun read. ★★★★★

First line: Mrs. Frisby, the head of a family of field mice, lived in an underground house in the vegetable garden of a farmer named Mr. Fitzgibbon.

Last lines: Outside the brook swam quietly through the woods, and up above them the warm wind blew through the newly opened leaves of the big oak tree. They went to sleep.