The Great & The Small

The Great & the Small tells the intertwined stories of a rat named Fin and a girl named Ananda. Ananda recently moved to a new city so her father could take a position in a research lab experimenting on rats. When Fin discovers the existence of the Killing Chamber, as rats call the lab, he joins with his uncle, Chairman of the Rat Council, in a vendetta against humans. His uncle somehow knows that a ship is arriving carrying the plague, and he plans to unleash the plague on humans by deliberately infecting dissident rats and sending them out. At first, Fin cooperates and plans to lead an infected team right to the home of Ananda’s father, but he is caught in a trap and Ananda rescues him.

Ananda suffers from depression brought about by her grandmother’s death, the move, and repressed trauma from a childhood abuse incident. She has the ability to hear animals’ thoughts and feelings, and she gets into conflicts with her father and with kids at school when she defends rats. She finds happiness nursing Fin back to health, but he runs away once he’s well enough. Fin joins a rebellion against his dictatorial uncle and kills him. The plague has already spread through the city, however, and Ananada is attacked by rats (who target her home because of Fin’s information) and gets infected. While she lies unconscious in the hospital, the spirit of her grandmother comforts her and begins the process of healing from her childhood abuse.

The writing in The Great & the Small is good, but the plot lacks structure, the pacing meanders, and the stakes are confusing. The theme that is most clearly developed is the nature of dictatorship and the reasons people support dictators. Fin is a compassionate rat who feels uncomfortable with his uncle’s actions, but he is made to feel important, and he is promised the opportunity to rescue the rats from the lab if he goes along with his uncle’s plan. Learning that not all humans are cruel comes too late for Fin to stop his uncle, and, in tragic irony, human deaths from the plague result in the rats being abandoned to die in the lab.

The plague is compared with COVID and serves as an implacable external force contributing to Ananda’s inner turmoil. At the end, brief mention is made of researchers in labs coming up with a treatment, but no conclusions are drawn about the ethics of experimenting on animals.

The Great & the Small is a dark story with few good outcomes and a little bit of hope at the end. I would be cautious about giving this book to a teen with any feelings of anxiety or depression.

Trigger Warnings: suicidal ideation, violence to and death of animals, bullying. The childhood abuse is never specified, but traumatic dreams relive the child’s fear and helplessness.