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4-6
Illustrated by
Chris Riddell.
"These rats were real badasses." This overblown retelling of the German folktale is outrageous, thought-provoking, raucous, and even veers into raunchy. An intrusive narrator addresses readers as "my darlings, my nose-pickers, my nincompoops" but urges them toward critical thinking as he describes the hedonistic dwellers of an imaginary Hamelin. Riddell's bold, full-color caricatures fit the text's tone like a glove. Glos.