The Highway Rat

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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?

Create a price list for the cake shop and imagine that some customers would like to buy a selection of the cakes. How much will they need to pay? How much change will they need to be given? What coins would be used for this? One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading. We have also managed to link it to art - we created Wanted posters for the Highway Rat. The children had to use their literacy skills to describe the rat and his terrible crimes, and then got the opportunity to be artistically creative as well. Both Julia and Axel enjoy international renown for their work. Julia was the UK Children’s Laureate 2011-13 and honoured with an MBE for services to Literature. Axel’s artwork is exhibited internationally; he has illustrated for many charities, and designed the Royal Mail Christmas stamps in 2012. Are children puzzled by anything? For example the meaning of words or phrases such as ‘stand and deliver’ or ‘halt’.

Find out about the author, Julia Donaldson. Watch this video and think of questions that you might like to ask her.

The Highway Rat is a baddie. He sits on the highway or the road through the mountains and he robs the people of all their food, even if he doesn’t like it. Even the leaves the ants are carrying, the Highway Rat takes it all. He’s so bad that he steals his own horses hay.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). Look at the use of rhyming words in the story. Can you think of other words which rhyme with the ones used? Although he prefers pastries and chocolate and cake, he’ll take anything you have. For as he says, “I am the Rat of the Highway – the Highway – the Highway. Yes I am the Rat of the Highway, and whatever I want I take.” The Highway Rat’s manners were ‘rough and rude’. Can you make a list of good manners to help the Highway Rat be nicer to others? 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.

I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books.Another delightful instant classic by Donaldson (writer) and Scheffler (illustrator) as a pesky Highway Rat is stealing all the other animals sweets and pastries. It could also be used for PSHE lessons, to explore why stealing is wrong and how it can affect the victim’s life. In science they can look at food chains and animal habitats and use the story to explore these topics further. 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 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.