Zoe não tem amigos, a madrasta não é nada simpática com ela e seu único companheiro, um hamster, morreu. Para piorar, o pai está desempregado e a valentona da escola vive para atormentá-la. Mas tudo melhora quando Zoe encontra Armitage, um ratinho muito fofo e inteligente, embaixo de sua cama.Um novo vilão, porém, chega à cidade: Burt, um terrível, malvado e assustador vendedor de hambúrgueres que usa carne de rato para cozinhar.

¿Y SI SU MASCOTA FUERA UN INGREDIENTE SECRETO?
ULTIMAMENTE ZOE TIENE MAS DE UN MOTIVO PARA ESTAR PREOCUPADA. EMPEZANDO POR SU MADRASTRA, SHEILA, QUE ES TAN FLOJA QUE INCLUSO PIDE QUE LE SUENEN LA NARIZ, PORQUE A ELLA LE DA PEREZA HACERLO,,,
CONTINUANDO POR TINA TROTTS, LA MATONA DEL COLEGIO, QUE LE HACE LA VIDA IMPOSIBLE...(¿CÓMO? PUES BÁSICAMENTE LANZÁNDOLE ESCUPITAJOS A LA CABEZA...)
Y POR SI TODO ESO FUERA POCO, AHORA EL MALVADO BURT, DEL RESTAURANTE DE HAMBURGUESAS BURT, ESTÁ INTENTANDO CAPTURAR A SU MASCOTA, UNA ENCANTADORA RATITA, PARA HACER...¿ADIVINAS QUÉ?
¡LA PISTA ESTA EN EL TÍTULO!

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. ( )

Not bad but every time I read about the housing commission life of British kids it makes me sad - seriously - is any child in Britain not brought up with a fat overweight step mother and an absent truck-driving father? Surely there must be some normal 2 parent families in semi-detached dwellings with cars and a decent diet? Everyone can't possibly live on welfare and crisps ? Anyway, back to the book....
Zoe is a "normal" high rise kid who wakes up one morning to discover her hamster is dead. At school she has to also deal with a bully called Tina Trots and at home, a step-mother who hates her. Her only companions are the local shop keeper Raj and her father who spends days away driving semi-trailers all over the country.
Then Zoe stumbles across a baby rat, and things look up, especially when the rat called Armitage bites Tina the bully. But other things are not looking good - the man who owns the burger van called Burt suddenly appears at her home and he like rats - to eat!
A bit horror-esque with the rat grinding machine and blind Burt but generally a book for younger kids. Quentin Blake's illustrations are a trifle off putting too. ( )

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. ( )