Cats, rats and being human

The book, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett, may sound like a simple yet amusing story about a cat, a few rats and a boy. But once the book is opened, one realises that a book must not be judged by its cover, rather its name.

The author takes us on a wonderful journey where, in a world, a cat and a few rats somehow gain the sixth sense to attain and apply knowledge. As a result, the cat learns to live amongst the rats and control itself from eating or attacking them — though he only applies this rule to the ones that can talk.

In the book, the cat goes on to make a simple boy into a prospective mayor, and make a rat-hating town into a place where there exists perfect harmony between humans and rats, where the rats even have a civilisation of their own, underground.

The book highlights perfect human nature, where rat language exists perfectly along with that of humans, on signboards. Though an amusing book to pass the time with, it sublimely highlights the qualities that a human needs to possess. When the cat, Maurice, uses one of his seven remaining lives to save the leader of the rat clan, it shows the qualities of sacrifice that human lives lack now. The book inculcates the values that must be instilled in a person, using a very amusing and imaginative medium.

— The reader is a student based in Dubai.