No typical Olympic athlete, the rodent hero of the latest children’s book by Sarah Brennan, titled The Tale of Run Run Rat (2008, Auspicious Times, Hong Kong, 32 pages), has a stubborn streak. A mighty appetite for Chinese pastry worsens this character flaw.
Cleverly, Brennan times this Olympic Games rat-tale, written in verse, to appear during the Chinese Year of the Rat and prior to the Beijing Games. She even launched it in a Hong Kong bookshop on May 3, a day after the Olympic torch passed through the streets outside. The cover, showing a rat toting the Olympic torch, almost perfectly depicts the previous day’s events.
No doubt, Brennan’s best move was to rely on newspaper cartoonist Harry Harrison, from Lamma Island, to illustrate the book. Harrison’s drawings add vibrancy and keep the story scampering until the end.
Initially, Run Run Rat lives a tranquil country lifestyle “beside the Yangtze River”.
“A quiet life of happy toil
With rustic joys a-plenty
Which would completely satisfy
Nineteen rats out of twenty
And yet for one young village rat
In search of fame and glory
The simple life was not enough….
And so begins my story.”
Chasing fame and adventure, Run Run arrives in Beijing soon before the Olympic marathon. The capital city differs from rural China.
“Now Beijing is a place
With quite extraordinary features
Like eighteen million humans
(Let alone the other creatures)
And nine gazillion motor cars
And bicycles and scooters
And motorbikes and buses
With extremely noisy hooters
And hammers hammering round the clock
And drillers drilling loudly
And workers working night and day
And buildings rising proudly
And people rushing left and right
And jostling and scurrying
And no one saying ‘How do you do?’
And everyone hurrying.”
When Run Run wanders into the biggest foot-race of the Games, some serious scurrying ensues.
“He rushed along the city streets
And up and down the byways
He wheeled around the roundabouts
He pelted down the highways
And on and on the runners ran
And on and on he chased them
And faster still they sped away
And faster yet he raced them.”
Intriguingly, one athlete in the Olympic marathon, a loser, of course, resembles former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Or does he?
Another illustration, showing Run Run’s 47 rat-cousins wrestling, resembles typical street scenes after dark in much of Hong Kong.
Originally from Tasmania, Brennan moved to Hong Kong in 1998. She has two daughters who influence her work.
Brennan wrote four previous books: A Dirty Story; An Even Dirtier Story; and The Tale of Chester Choi (all illustrated by Harrison); and a humorous advice book, Dummies For Mummies.
The Tale of Run Run Rat shows how a skilful author and a talented artist can collaborate to create something greater than either could achieve alone. Young readers, aged five to 105, should be richly entertained.
Approval rating: 80 per cent.
(May 13, 2008)
Young admirers surround Brennan.
Rats wrestle like at night on Hong Kong streets.
ARCHIVES
|
