Rat Rule 79: An Adventure

“Rivka Galchen delivers joy and cleverness reminiscent of The Phantom Tollbooth, Alice in Wonderland, and Hayao Miyazaki movies” (NPR, Best Books of 2019) in Rat Rule 79, a brain-twisting adventure story about friendship, growing up, and peanut-butter-pickle sandwiches.

Fred and her math-teacher mom are always on the move, and Fred is getting sick of it. She’s about to have yet another birthday in a new place without friends. On the eve of turning thirteen, Fred sees something strange in the living room: her mother, dressed for a party, standing in front of an enormous paper lantern―which she steps into and disappears.

Fred follows her and finds herself in the Land of Impossibility―a loopily illogical place where time has been outlawed by a mad Rat Queen, along with birthday parties and, most cruelly, peanut butter. Fred meets Downer, a downcast white elephant, and Gogo, a pugnacious mongoose mother of seventeen, who help her in her quest to find her mom. Together they must brave dungeons, Insult Fish, a Know-It-Owl, Fearsome Ferlings, and ultimately the Rat Queen herself―and solve an ageless riddle to escape certain doom.

Gorgeously illustrated and reminiscent of The Phantom Tollbooth and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Rivka Galchen’s Rat Rule 79 is an instant classic for curious readers of all ages.

Rivka Galchen is an award winning fiction writer and journalist who loves noodles and numbers and modest-sized towns where her dad might have worked. Her work appears often in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The London Review of Books and The New York Times. She is the author of three books: Atmospheric Disturbances (Novel, FSG, 2008), American Innovations (Short Stories, FSG 2014) and Little Labors (Essays, New Directions, 2016). She has received numerous prizes and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Fellowship, The Berlin Prize and The William J Saroyan International Prize in Fiction. In 2010, she was named to The New Yorker’s list of 20 Writers Under 40. Galchen also holds an MD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Rat Rule 79 is her first book for young readers.

Elena Megalos was raised in the City of Angels. When she was twelve-going-on-thirteen she dreamed of writing the cookie fortunes for her beloved neighborhood Chinese restaurant, The Unicorn. That, or illustrating a book for children. This is her first one. See more work at elenamegalos.com.