"Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH" by Robert O'Brien; 6/10

Another movie to book experience.  In this case the movie in question is "The Secret Of NIMH."  It is so-called because of weirdness with the rights to make the movie, which also resulted in the protagonist's name being changed to "Mrs. Brisby." Isn't that strange?

"The Secret Of NIMH" is one of my all-time favorite kids' movies, made by my favorite animator, one Don Bluth.  Karen and I have actually made a bit of a study of animation styles over the years, you should ask one of us some time.  This movie is excellent, particularly as in terms of the animation, but the story and voice acting are pretty good too.  I used to watch it at my grandfather's house in Louisville, Kentucky, where I was born, and where I would return a few times a year to visit.  It scared the shit out of me as a kid, but not in lasting ways.  It's probably too dark for the age it was made for, and shares this with "Watership Down" (about which, I'm happy to now be able to report, more later).

I occasionally put my speculative fiction tastes to the test with kids' lit and teen' lit, with mixed results.  This story is actually unusually sci-fi-ish for a children's story, and succeeds best on those terms for me.  Essentially the tale follows the same idea of "Flowers For Algernon" (increased intelligence) without the downside, as an adventure after the testing has transpired, and from the point of view of the rodents. 

The adventure in this story is substantially less than that in the movie (as you might expect, the movie had to have more action) and the book is conversely much longer on back-story, which was my favorite part anyways.  I have three favorite characters who are present in both book and movie, and in the movie one of them dies.  In the book he lives! But a different one dies. Frowny face. I now imagine it as both of them living, sort of a hybrid plot, it's geeky, deal with it.

The book is good, though mostly on the strength of a premise which isn't entirely original.  More here for kids than for adults, especially with a resolution that feels to hurried and too easy.  Good book though. The strange thing about reading it as an adult was that I had both seen the movie and, I was pretty sure, read every Newbery-winning book that had come out before I was 9, but I remembered nothing and wound up being fairly certain I'd never even held this book in my hands before. Go figure.