Talk:Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

Clarity Issue
This sentence is a lead weight.


 * The novel relates the plight of a widowed field mouse, Mrs. Frisby, whose family must trek every year to a summer home to escape the destruction of their winter home, in a cinder block, by ploughing.

I haven't read the book, but I think it should be


 * The novel relates the plight of a widowed field mouse, Mrs. Frisby, whose summer home is destroyed every year by ploughing, and who must trek with her family to their winter home in a cinder block.

Is "in a cinder block" necessary for such a short article? Is this the most important stuff, or just a summary of what happens first? Prof jerz 16:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Their normal home is threatened by the plow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.82.227.33 (talk) 22:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

What does NIMH mean anyway?
What does "NIMH" mean, anyway? &mdash; J I P | Talk 05:57, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * National Institute of Mental Health. AJD 06:52, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I had hoped it would be something more mystic, though.   &mdash; J I P | Talk 18:57, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * "Nimh, f, poison, venom" -- Gaelic-English dictionary. It's a possible double-meaning in the books. *shrug* 24.88.16.137 30 June 2005 03:37 (UTC)

Ending incorrect?
That bit at the end about what happens after the rats help Mrs. Frisby is either incorrect or I had a severely abbreviated copy of the book, for that's where it ended.

I think that is right because in 6th grade I read this book and now in 7th so I remember it still the book is interesting but quite long.

Ficticious Laboratory?
From the article : "... Nicodemus, who relates their capture, experimentation at a (fictitious) laboratory at NIMH ...". Does this mean that Nicodemus made up the story about the laboratory in NIHM? Or that there isn't really such a place in the real world? this place is real its in Ohio.(9624 sw 45 crt)

The NIHM does exist in real life, but I think that we can safely assume that they do not have a laboratory where they are creating highly intelligent rats (or at least not one that the author and general public are aware of). Within the story though, there is no reason to assume that the lab is not real, so Nicodemus probably didn't make up the story about the lab. In real life though the NIHM is not a ficticious institute, BUT that laboratory is. --O crandell (talk) 16:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * If it makes you feel better (or worse), there are laboratories where they're making remote controlled rats instead. :) Kylu (talk) 03:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The Summary
Mrs.frisby's child Timothy lies on his bed ill with pneumonia not being moved.Thier family will have to move to thier summer quarters immediantely or they will face certain death.However they meet significent rats with special intelligence who comes up with a brilliant solution thier problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.223.12.245 (talk) 05:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Video game reference
Perhaps this info should be on the page for the movie... I'm guessing that this is an allusion to the movie title rather than the book title, although I really don't know.--207.75.33.115 (talk) 23:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

ONLY DUMB PEOPLE WOULD MAKE THIS STUFF — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:CA:C201:838A:E9B7:A304:D706:E573 (talk) 20:20, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Why is the succession box there? Why link to unrelated books, who just happened to win an award?
Is there a reason to have the succession box down there? Its already listing the category of the award. No since having a link to other books by different writers, which have absolutely nothing in common at all other than the award itself. If no one objects, I'm going to remove that box.  D r e a m Focus  02:32, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

"Parallels in science"
I have removed the following text from the article. For the same reason we do not have some kind of extended discussion on Star Trek about how the cell phones of the late 90s/early 2000s look an awful lot like the communicators on the show, or how most things in science fiction eventually "come true", we don't need extensive coverage of this stuff on the page of a children's book, particularly when we already know the book is partly inspried by earlier research. Unless you can provide a source indicating some realtionship, i.e., the scientists are somehow working to make the novel a reality, or were inspired by it, the following is just irrelevant:


 * Research published in the March 2013 issue of Cell Stem Cell details the injection of human glial cells into the brains of newborn mice. Upon maturation, the mice were faster learners.
 * Agreed. We shouldn't be including material like this unless the sources directly and substantively reference the book. DonIago (talk) 04:49, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Reception
Was the book well received generally? I always thought it was. I'm pretty sure it was on the primary school curriculum when I was a kid. Bacondrum (talk) 10:19, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Car Seat Headrest - notable enough to be worth mentioning?
The song 'Martin' from Making a Door Less Open has been stated in interviews to be based on the book, is it worth mentioning here? If so, where in the page would it go? It's not quite an adaptation or related work, and I'd rather not restructure the page without at least asking about it. 2603:6011:7808:41C7:AD01:675A:8AE0:553B (talk) 18:50, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Before worrying about where to put it in the article, do we have a reliable source for this claim? You mention interviews; can you provide a specific interview? DonIago (talk) 14:05, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Wrong Name
Her name is mrs. Brisby not mrs. Frisby 2601:C2:F80:380:CC05:A46D:8FDB:1EAC (talk) 22:35, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Only in the movie, which this article is not about. AJD (talk) 23:29, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: ENGL 273 - Children's Literature
I plan to make a few changes to this article in the coming weeks. First, I intend to revise the lead section by adding details on the specific genre, clarifying the existing material, and adding information on the initial publication as well as background on the author's inspiration for the book. Also, the plot summary section has a few inconsistencies and is missing some character information and transitions between paragraphs. The wording could also be revised for clarity. I would also like to expand the related works and reception sections, both of which are slightly sparse. I am also thinking of creating a new section called genre (either on its own or as a subheading of the background section) which will discuss the unique intersection of this book between children's literature and science fiction. This will better align the article with Wikipedia's article recommendations for books. Several sections of the article are largely uncited, which I also plan to fix. Additionally, I will add more images throughout the article, to break up the text. Please feel free to check out my sandbox for a more comprehensive list of sources I plan to use to add to each section. Hvelraj (talk) 14:25, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Query: Issue in "critical response"
In the first paragraph under Critical response, there's a line that says: Scholar Paula T. Connolly noted the book for Conly's "gradations of moral understanding and culpability"...

This is confusing. If scholar Connolly is discussing the original book, the attribution should be to O'Brien's book. The use of "Conly" here implies that the reference may be to one of the two sequels by O'Brien's daughter. Alternately, this could be a simple transcription error, perhaps exacerbated by the similarity of names between the scholarly writer and O'Brien's daughter. It doesn't help that the source cited in the footnote is a work credited to a completely different individual, whose title strongly suggests that contributors to the source volume may indeed be looking at secondary material (like the Conly sequels) as well as the original book.

In short, there's a tangle here, and the nature of the needed fix is not immediately obvious. (John C. Bunnell) 50.126.66.9 (talk) 00:43, 29 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for bringing this up; I've tagged that part of the article for needing clarification, as I'm unable to review the source presently, and tagging it might ensure it gets more prompt attention. DonIago (talk) 16:50, 1 May 2023 (UTC)