The Highway Rat

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We have spoken about how the book rhymes, and how it can be read in a rhythmical way. The second time that we read it, the children were able to join in with some of the repetitive sentences, which they all really enjoyed. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married. Choose a scene from the story and act it out together, you can improvise an imaginary conversation or use some of the words from the story. Make a poster Absolutely marvelous! As an adult reader I totally adore the clever and delightful textual parody of Alfred Noyes' classic The Highwayman ballad (and indeed also much appreciate that with The Highway Rat, Julia Donaldson has just taken Alfred Noyes' external form and has not made her text content wise into some silly love story and her Highway Rat into a romantic type of hero, as no, that would in my opinion have made The Highway Rat annoyingly maudlin and not the engaging and so very much fun poetic parody of The Highwayman that it is).

As mom who was an English Lit major, I LOVE this cheeky little book...it's a retelling of/homage to Alfred Noyes' poem "The Highwayman" (without all the, you know, shooting and death and ghosts and whatnot). My son loves the great rhythm, and at two, fills in the words at the end of each stanza. The fact that it's a long poem makes it a fun read-aloud, and it's great to start to expose little ones to poetry concepts at an early age, from a literacy standpoint. Plus, it's just fun. The Highway Rat is a baddie and he takes whatever food he wants from any traveller that he stops. Pastries, puddings, buns, biscuits, nuts, fish, milk, flies and even a bunch of clover and a leaf, the last mentioned from an army of ants! He even steals his own horse's hay! As the story develops, the Highway Rat’s horse has to carry more of the things that he has stolen. How much might each of these things weigh? How much would the horse have to carry in total? Help your child to dress up as a highway rat use a piece of cloth as a cloak. You could make a mask for your child out of card. For instructions follow link here and scroll to ‘Method 2’ Play the story

The Highway Rat’ (2016) is another first rate little adventure for younger readers from the accomplished pen of Julia Donaldson, with the usual and lovely accompanying illustrations by Axel Sheffler. You get a sense (or at least I did) whilst reading the book that it’s a very ‘active’ story. By that I don’t just mean its plot is full of cause and effect, but also that it lends itself to being acted out. This is a fun story that you can use to celebrate and promote reading. Using some of your class as a chorus, a few children as the lead characters and after having made character masks and props in class, The Highway Rat would make a perfect assembly piece. Look at the use of speech marks within the story. Could you use these to turn the story into a play and perform it to others? The Highway Rat is described as a ‘baddie’ and a ‘beast’. Can you think of any other words that might be used to describe him?

Write a diary entry from the point of view of the Highway Rat. What does he do each day? How does he feel about it? Written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Shaffer (The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom), The Highway Rat is a delightful story. It’s largely written in verse which lends it a tremendous pace and sense of excitement that will engage younger children, particularly in years one and two. The moral issue of theft which forms the central conceit of the book lends itself to further extraction and questioning. Using talk partners, you can ask children to come up with responses to particular questions – is The Highway Rat right to steal their food etc? What would you do if The Highway Rat stole your food? Donaldson’s ear for rhyme is unequalled, and Scheffler’s busy, funny illustrations make this ideal for reading aloud with lots of voices and chances to join in” Daily MailThe Highway Rat gets fat from eating everyone else’s dinner. Can you think of a healthy diet to help him keep fit?