I got to work this morning and just had to pick up from where I was reading last night. I read some before the students came. I happened to be outside another teacher's room. She looked over my shoulder and commented, "I just think it is so funny that you are reading a comic book at school." I did not have a chance to respond, but if she only knew! Plus, it is a graphic novel. I had to read this book after hearing my classmates talk about it. When I heard it talked about in class, so different t...

Loved this book for the story as well as the making of it that Talbot describes in the end!

Lovely stuff! This book has earned its reputation, and I'm sorry I never got around to reading it until now. A young runaway in London with a pet rat embarks on a journey that will take her in the footsteps of Beatrix Potter. It's a journey of self discovery and involves her coming to terms with the incestuous abuses of her father that drove her from home in the first place. In the wrong hands, this could have been heavy and fraught with Message. Talbot's skills as a writer/artist are much bette...

So...Um...Yeah. The art was spectacular. The story too much on the nose, for the most part. I suppose where it strays from reality for me was when daughter confronts her dad and he has a sort of "what have I done" moment and then she moves on with her life and begins her process of healing. This was a little too simplistic for me and didn't match what I've experienced or encountered with others, which is closer to confrontation leads to denial, more abuse, chastisement, criticism, hatred etc. an...

An interesting adaptation, with beautiful art (Talbot!) and strong narration.

The artwork was beautifull! Also I loved the explanation of the author at the end of the book. it is very nice to read that an authoer makes such deliberate choices producing a book.Some things went a bit too fast in my opinion (the time she needed to resolve some issues), but overall it is a beautifull book nicely connecting a children stories, Beatrix Potter, with more serious themes, sexual abuse and homelessness.

Bottled up emotions... it's best to let it out. I didn't quite like how Helen confronted her abuser though. A talk. That's all? I was expecting something violent. Now, that would be more satisfying :)I also don't see the point of all those boring facts about rats (thrown in here and there) throughout random conversation between characters. Felt unnecessary.But still, an overall good read.

4.5This was not the kind of book you love. It is the kind of book that moves you. When Eisner began writing graphic novels, he had books like this in mind. This is a book first, and comic second. It tells a story that needs to be told. It's actually for this work that I have created a new shelf, dubbed "important." I'll be slowly moving over other books from classics, and contemporary novels which deserve to be read. A story that needed to be told was here. I think this will be used in classroom...

This is a graphic novel centred around a survivor of parental emotional/sexual abuse, Helen,who loves Beatrix Potter and empathises with rats. It follows her journey in dealing with, and eventually healing from, this abuse.The positives first: the art was good and gave a solid sense of Britain in the Nineties, and some of the character moments/elements depicting reaction to abuse and trauma were well done. The fake Beatrix Potter book at the end was perfect. I was glad to see a narrative where t...

Okay, let’s see. The basic premise, according to Talbot, was “a homeless girl with a synchronistic link with Beatrix Potter follows Potter’s escape into her new life in the Lakes.” He goes on to admit that having Helen flee sexual abuse at the hands of her father was a plot device to get her homeless, but that it is a common cause of teenage homelessness. Fine then. So it’s common. That explains the cliché way he dealt with it? I don’t think so.And I’ll tell you what I really think:Scenery/Setti...

The Tale of One Bad Rat is one of those classics of the medium, one of those books that was an indelible footnote in the quest to prove that comics could be about more than just superheroes and melodrama. Whether Bryan Talbot's intent or not, One Bad Rat became one of the arguments for comics being a medium of communication worth the same level of serious consideration as literature. Or if not literature, then at least the same sober reflection that cinema could garner. In a way, that's kind of

Intense, and no doubt groundbreaking for the time. Yay for bringing abuse stories into the foreground. These stories are necessary. Appreciated the rat as metaphor. Obviously triggering for some. The ending is a bit hard to believe, but probably necessary. Cheers for color illustration, and integrating literature and it's impact into story. Pretty tough to read.

Comics don't get much better than this, or more important, for that matter. It's one of those books everyone should read for various reasons. The inclusion of pet rat was just fantastic. And, paradoxically, somehow real as broken bone even after he continued to follow the main protagonist as imaginary friend. Perhaps, even more after that. As other reviewers said, this is either very well researched, or told from personally experienced perspective.

A gripping, emotional tale, with amazing artwork throughout

A young woman, Helen, flees her cruel, cold stepmother and her sexually abusive father, becoming a ward of the streets. Following the trail of Beatrix Potter, her favorite author, Helen survives drunken statesmen, police, squatter houses, and opportunistic "good" Samaritans, at last reaching her promised land in the countryside and finding healing there.This hits a bit close to home, as several people close to me have histories that mirror portions of this book: sexual assault, a life on the str...

A 16 year old girl called Helen Potter leaves home, running from an abusive father and a mother who doesn't care. She finds herself begging on the streets of London and, along with her pet rat and a bag full of Beatrix Potter books, she begins a journey similar to Potter's out of her horrible situation into a place where she is safe and happy both in mind and body. Bryan Talbot does a fantastic job depicting the horrors of street life in London. The sprawl, the crazies who are out there preying

I'm between a 3 and a 4 in the gr stars. This book does many things beautifully and well, and also sometimes it feels like a dated manual of some kind, detailing the negative affects of abuse. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just the book gets a little klunky in moments and then resolves kind of quickly. That said, Talbot does some delicate and beautiful storytelling in here. Helen, the protagonist, has run away from home, fleeing the abuse and neglect of her parents. She manages to keep he...

This was truly a work of art.I remember my mother wanted to read it back in my childhood, but she never picked up any of the issues. So I was quite excited when I found a battered collection of them at my new library.Bryan Talbot handles this touching story of childhood lost, molestation, and street living with a realism and humanity that I've not seen from authors before. Most turn their stories into Lifetime movies, almost making caricatures of the people involved. And perhaps that's the stran...

This Graphic Novel (Capital G, Capital N) made me cry.I cried because I felt the suffering of the main character Helen Potter.I cried because I felt joy at her overcoming her adversities.I cried because this was a perfect example of how the graphic medium can be; just as mature and well drafted as any Novel out there.Then I cried when I had finished reading it, just because.

This is a remarkable book, and Talbot -- as far as I'm concerned -- never topped it. The story, though it may come across as a little pop-psych by its climax, is engaging and the illustration is the best Talbot ever created, lush yet simple at the same time. It is telling that this superb work is worlds away from his usually more sci-fi outings.If there's a single drawback to reading this, it's that I still feel it'd be a more interesting read were I more (or at all) familiar with the works of B...