The Road to Ratenburg

Description

Title: The Road to Ratenburg
Author: Joy Cowley (illustrations by Gavin Bishop)
Publisher: Gecko Press, Wellington, 2016
Format: Paperback
Condition: Very Good — Small stain on first two pages

Out of print.

Description:

Allow me to introduce myself. I am Spinnaker Rat, proud father of four little ratlets, devoted husband of Retsina, patient companion to the exasperating Roger, brave leader of a perilous adventure on the road to Ratenburg…

A family of rats is forced from their home and must find their way to the fabled city of Ratenburg — outwitting dogs, rat traps, and sharp-beaked hawks along the way. The narrator is Spinnaker Rat, an Edwardian father full of certainty about the ways of the world, who discovers on this journey that the world is considerably less certain than he thought. The bonds between sisters and brothers, between unlikely companions, between mum and dad — they are tested and grown in the crossing.

Joy Cowley published The Road to Ratenburg on the eve of her 80th birthday. She has written over 1,100 books, sold over 40 million copies internationally, won the NZ Post Children’s Book of the Year three times, and been shortlisted for the Hans Christian Andersen Award — the highest international honour in children’s literature. Gavin Bishop (ONZM, Tainui, Ngāti Awa) has illustrated more than 70 books internationally and is the co-creator, with Cowley, of the celebrated Snake and Lizard series. Together they are the most significant creative partnership in NZ children’s publishing.

Trevor Agnew in Magpies Magazine put it well: “Think of The Road to Ratenburg as an escalator of excellence, between, say, Gavin Bishop’s Rats and Terry Pratchett’s Maurice and His Amazing Educated Rodents. All three books are delightful variations on the same theme but only one has joy. Joy Cowley, that is…” Kate De Goldi on RNZ called it “hilarious, inventive, funny and poignant.”

Recommended for ages 8 and up; excellent read-aloud for younger children.

Why We Stock It:

Joy Cowley and Gavin Bishop are the two most significant figures in NZ children’s literature of the last four decades. This is their finest chapter book collaboration — funny, wise, and with more going on under the surface than it initially appears. From Wellington’s most distinguished children’s press. Out of print and worth having.