Joe Rat

In the dark underbelly of Victorian London a boy named Joe scavenges for scraps in the rat-infested sewers of the East End. They call it toshing'. / Viciously exploited by the women he knows as Mother - a monstrous criminal mastermind who controls everything in the boy's small world - Joe scrapes a living in a city where no one can be trusted. / Then a chance encounter with a runaway girl and a madman' turns Joe's world upside down. But is it a change for the better or are things about to get a lot worse for the boy they call Joe Rat?

Children's Literature

Joe is an orphan, probably about ten, on the streets of Victorian London, exploited by a figure straight out of Oliver Twist that Joe calls "Mother," only her influence seems to spread further and wider than Fagin's. She runs any number of criminal enterprises. Joe's job is to go each day into the sewers and rake around in the muck to find lost valuables and pieces of bone and wood, which he then takes back to Mother, for which she pays him almost nothing, keeping him continually in her debt. Joe never bathes, has no real friends, and has to do battle with street gangs just to get home. He essentially lives like an animal. Meanwhile, Bess, a girl from a family suddenly impoverished because of her father's accident, is about to be sold into prostitution—though this is never explicitly spelled out—by her evil mother. Sensing her fate, she runs away into the dark alleys of the city and meets up with Joe. They take refuge in the house of a madman. The plot here is truly Dickinsenian, replete with amazing coincidences and graphic detail about life for orphans in the underbelly of London. The madman, in his own mad way, proves to be their salvation. Joe's character is interesting and the plot's twists and turns are vivid enough to keep young audiences turning pages. It is a good historical novel for young people. Reviewer: Myrna Dee Marler

Mark Barratt has written several books about the difficult lives of children around the world, including Galimoto, Tap-Tap, and Circles of Hope. Karen has lived in Haiti and Malawi, and currently lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.