All Hail the Rat King ...
/Earlier today the children's book world was squirming in unison from a tweet sent by Jennifer Laughran. It was a link to a Wikipedia article about something called a "rat king." Rat kings are clusters of rats whose tails have become intertwined -- either with blood, excrement, dirt, or plain-old tangling. Apparently they continue to live in these large co-joined packs for quite some time. The Wikipedia article features a photo of a mummified rat king which is pretty disgusting. I warned Mary not to click on the link, but she could not resist. She saw the page for all of half-a-second before screaming and almost dropping her computer. When she looked up again, I was already hunched over my journal, drawing away:
Don't be surprised if one of these things ends up in a book of mine one day. You have been warned.