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    Ratburger
    Ratburger
    Ratburger
    Audiobook3 hours

    Ratburger

    Written by David Walliams

    Narrated by David Walliams and Nitin Ganatra

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The fifth screamingly funny novel from David Walliams, number one bestseller and fastest growing children’s author in the country.

    Hot on the heels of bestselling Gangsta Granny comes another hilarious, action-packed and touching novel – the story of a little girl called Zoe. Things are not looking good for Zoe. Her stepmother Sheila is so lazy she gets Zoe to pick her nose for her. The school bully Tina Trotts makes her life a misery – mainly by flobbing on her head. And now the evil Burt from Burt’s Burgers is after her pet rat! And guess what he wants to do with it? The clue is in the title…

    From the author that is being called ‘a new Roald Dahl’, Ratburger is not to be missed!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 19, 2012
    ISBN9780007468171
    Ratburger
    Author

    David Walliams

    David Walliams is the New York Times bestselling author of Demon Dentist, The Midnight Gang, and Grandpa's Great Escape. His novels have sold over eighteen million copies worldwide and have been translated into over fifty-three languages. David’s books have achieved unprecedented critical acclaim—with many reviewers comparing him to his all-time hero, Roald Dahl. In addition to being a bestselling author, David is an actor, comedian, and television personality. In 2017, he was awarded an OBE for services to charity and the arts. He lives in the UK.

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    Reviews for Ratburger

    4.5/5

    169 ratings15 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title entertaining, suspenseful, and full of surprises. The voices in the audio book are loved by many. It is a little scary, but overall a very good book. It is recommended for children and adults alike, with heartwarming and happy moments. David Walliams is praised as a great storyteller. Readers would like to see more books from him.

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Dear David Walliams, it would make me so so so happy if you responded to this, I just want to say thank you for making this an audio book as this one is specifically my favourite! You are my favourite author, and I’m your biggest fan. Now you may get a lot of these notes so you don’t have to reply ! :) have a good day/evening! Yours sincerely -Layla Jones

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Great story teller and brilliant and telling his own stories. Glad I gave it a go as an adult. Lovely bit of escapism.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is so good I can’t say how good it is

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved the book it is a little scary but the book was very good

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loveddd it. Heart felt and happy. Highly recommend this book ? ?

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      It was so entertaining and had great surprises and suspense. Loved the voices David did.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      A very children’s book, says my son of 10 years.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I liked it! Still it was scary, that Armatage almost got killed, but a happy, rat-dancing ending!
    • 4/5
      It was a great story to read and I like to see more David Walliam’s books
    • 4/5
      The ick-factor is quite high in this fun, silly book about a (sweet, kind, and adborable, of course) little girl who lives in poverty with her father, who has given up on life, and her her stepmother, who makes Cinderella's stepmother look like a saint by comparison. When she finds a baby rat and makes a pet of him, she believes her life going to get a little better. Instead, it sets in motion a chain of funny but quite disgusting events, and brings her into the clutches of a man even more dreadful than her stepmother, if you can imagine that. Of course, all is well by the end of the tale.

      In spite of the protagonist being a girl, this seems like a book that will have more appeal to boys who are ready to graduate from Captain Underpants to a silly and gross story that's more of a novel and less of a comic book. American readers, be aware that it is a British book with a great many Britishisms, British slang, etc. Younger readers might need a little help understanding the meaning of some of the terms, but older readers should get by fine on context, even if they don't know a particular word.
    • 4/5
      Written under the humour genre, but sad in some aspects. While some pages will have you laughing due to the situation and accent portrayed in the text, it is mindful to remember that this humour is derived from others misfortune. This book is written in Walliams typical, stereotypical, satirical way, in that he casts characters using societal perceptions about characters.
      These characters are the misfits of society who have lost their way in life due to unemployment or who have met with misfortune and are down on their luck.
      The story is of Zoe, a sweet young girl being raised in tenement building by an unkempt, unemployed father and an overweight, unwashed, mean stepmother, named Sheila. Zoe’s real mother died when she was young. If this is not enough to add to Zoe’s problems, she is relentlessly bullied at school by Tina Trotts who lives in the apartment next to Zoe. Tina’s living conditions are worse than that of Zoe and Tina expresses her dissatisfaction by making other children’s lives as miserable as her own.
      Zoe’s pet hamster dies and she begins to tame a rat that has made its home in her bedroom. She names her rat Armitage (after the porcelain toilet bowl makers) and keeps it close to her chest in her breast pocket wherever she goes. Unfortunately Armitage escapes from Zoe’s pocket while at a school and Zoe is suspended.
      Sheila soon finds out that Zoe has a rat and brings in the so called pest control man who is in fact the greasy burger man who sells burgers out the front of the school.
      He captures Armitage and Zoe is locked up in her room by her stepmother. Zoë’s sets about escaping (rather far-fetched in that she uses her braces and chisels her way through the plaster & brick wall) and saving Armitage from becoming a pulverised meat patty for the burger man.
      It all works out in the end as Zoe is re united with her pet rat.
      While one can laugh at the surface layer of this book, if you read between the lines there are some sad aspects and one can’t help but think how mean, insensitive it is to make light of others misfortune.
    • 3/5
      Although I didn't enjoy the humour, I'm certain that it will appeal to some students. Zoe ends up with a pet rat that her stepmother will not let her keep. When she brings it to school and Armitage, the rat, gets discovered, Zoe is suspended. When she arrives home, the man who operates a burger food truck near her school is in her bedroom masquerading as a pest control man. Zoe discovers that he grinds up rats to make the patties and she is determined to save Armitage from such a gruesome death.
      Students for sure will have difficulty with the many British terms that pop up in the book such as: fags, bop, cardigan, tarmac, bunking off, etc. but other than that it's an easy read. A word of warning - Zoe's dad has lost his job and spends all of his time in the pub. She is neglected and verbally abused by the stepmother so it isn't the happy story that it appears to be by the cover.
      People who enjoyed Roald Dahl's Matilda will enjoy this book.
    • 4/5
      After watching Mr Stink at Christmas we started this book. I did enjoy it, but there are quite a lot of similarities between the two stories. It was funny and scary in parts, I think Walliams is trying to be the new Roald Dahl which is a good aim, but he has a way to go yet.
    • 5/5
      Great funny UK fiction - fantastic author for children who love Andy Stanton (Mr Gum series), Philip Ardagh (Th eGrunts etc) and Roald Dahl!
    • 5/5
      This review first appeared on The Book Zone(For Boys) blog

      As I confessed in my review of Gangsta Granny, I was something of a latecomer to the books of David Walliams, but since then I have read all three of the titles that preceded it. Gangsta Granny was definitely my favourite of the four, and when comparing in order of their release it is easy to see how David Walliams is developing as a writer. Ratburger is no exception, with the author's writing continuing to develop, and there is now no doubt in my mind that his books will eventually become recognised as classics, and that in the future we will be talking about his work in the same breath as Roald Dahl.

      Ratburger differs from David Walliams' previous books in one very obvious way - none of those books had a stand out villain. We all know that kids (and most adults) love a really nasty villain, and now it is as if the author is rewarding his readers for their patient wait. Burt (yes, not a particularly dastardly evil name, but this is a David Walliams book) is as nasty as any of the classic villains from the annals of children's literature. I don't want to ruin things by telling you too much about him - as it says on the back: "...there's a clue in the title of the book...". And Burt isn't the only villain of the piece - there is also a wicked stepmother and a thuggish school bully to add to the misery of main character Zoe's life.

      As with his previous books, Walliams continues to show his mastery of both character and pathos. Just like Dahl, the lives he creates for his main characters are generally unhappy, although not to the point where they wallow in their misery. Zoe has pretty much accepted that her life is not going to improve and so she makes the most of the few nice things that come her way. This means that his young readers are sympathising with the protagonist from the get go, finding it easy to imagine themselves in a similar situation, something I remember doing when I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or The BFG when I was a child.

      If you read reviews of David's books you will very quickly get the impression that he is single-handedly turning a generation of under 10s into book lovers. Someone give this man a medal! Ratburger is a must-buy book for any child of 8 or older, and even though it has some rather disgusting moments, slightly younger children will still love it when read as a bedtime story. Don't be squeamish parents - kids love gruesome! I now feel the need to buy this book for every child of this age that I know, but sadly I can't afford to. However, my godson's younger brother, who has yet to become an avid reader like his older brothers, will be the lucky recipient of the audio book (which I so want for myself). I heard David Walliams reading a passage on The One Show just after I had finished reading the book, and the voices he gave his characters made me want to read it all over again.