You are holding in your hands a very unusual book - a book about how rats and people have long had their own difficult, but truly important relationship. Sometimes so important that a rat could save a person’s life or, conversely, bring misfortune to an entire nation. In her new book, Marina Aromshtam surprisingly accurately managed to convey the atmosphere of Palestine during the Crusades and Old England - from the Great Fire of 1666 to the reign of Queen Victoria. Using rich historical material, the author creates his own world, in which there is a place not only for fact, but also for fantasy. Anyone who is already familiar with Marina Aromshtam’s other books and her first historical story “Lancelot the Cat and the Golden City” will certainly love these new fairy tales. And those who are not yet familiar will get real pleasure from traveling to a new mysterious world, where rats are “in some ways like people, and in some ways better than people,” as one of the heroes of this book claims. Marina Aromstam – specialist in children's reading, teacher, journalist, author of children's and teenage books that have received many prestigious literary awards.