书名：Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh费里斯比夫人和尼姆的老鼠
读者对象：8-12岁
难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数790L
作者：Robert C. O'Brien
出版社名称：Atheneum Books for Young Readers
出版时间：1986
语种：英文
ISBN：9780689710681
商品尺寸：14.8 x 1.7 x 19.4 cm
包装：平装
页数：240（以实物为准）
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh《费里斯比夫人和尼姆的老鼠》是获得美国纽伯瑞儿童文学金奖的经典小说作品，书中的费里斯比夫人是一只田鼠，她和尼姆科学实验机构中的老鼠结识，共同创造出不依赖任何人、只属于自己的文明群落。

这是一个感人的童话故事，是关于爱、勇气与坚持的寓言，对于孩子们的成长具有很大的启发意义。同时，书中用词较为简单，并附有生动形象的插图，适合作为中小学生英语课外读物使用。

Mrs. Frisby, a widowed mouse with four small children, is faced with a terrible problem. She must move her family to their summer quarters immediately, or face almost certain death. But her youngest son, Timothy, lies ill with pneumonia and must not be moved. Fortunately, she encounters the rats of NIMH, an extraordinary breed of highly intelligent creatures, who come up with a brilliant solution to her dilemma. And Mrs. Frisby in turn renders them a great service.
费里斯比夫人是一只田鼠，为使小儿子平安度过冬春之交的日子而四处求助，在猫头鹰的指点下，她结识了一群神奇的老鼠，他们将自己的洞穴装置得如同宫殿一般，地毯、电灯、自来水、冰箱等设施应有尽有。原来他们是从一个叫做尼姆的科学实验机构中逃出来的。老鼠们讲述了自己的经历，帮助田鼠一家安置了新居，然而，他们却毅然决然地舍弃了舒适的生活，去另辟新的天地，因为，那是一种自食其力的艰苦而又有意义的生活。
罗伯特·奥布赖恩，美国著名作家、记者和儿童文学家。他的儿童文学创作涉及童话、小说等多种体裁，其中《尼姆的老鼠》非常有名，出版后曾获得波士顿环球荷思书籍奖、刘易斯·卡罗尔图书奖、美国全国图书奖、美国图书馆纽伯瑞奖、马克·吐温奖、西北太平洋图书馆协会青年读物奖、马萨诸塞州文学奖等多种奖项。

In real life, Robert C. O'Brien was Robert Leslie Conly. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, attended Williams College and graduated from the Universtiy of Rochester. He also had a home in Morgan County, West Virginia, after 1965, a place he loved and visited as often as he could. He was married and the father of one son and three daughters. His books include The Silver Crown, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which won the Newbery Award, and A Report From Group 17. His last book, Z is for Zachariah was nearly completed at the time of his death; the last few chapters were written from notes by this wife and one of his daughters.
Mrs. Frisby, the head of a family of field mice, lived in an underground house in the vegetable garden of a farmer named Mr. Fitzgibbon. It was a winter house, such as some field mice move to when food becomes too scarce, and the living too hard in the woods and pastures. In the soft earth of a bean, potato, black-eyed pea and asparagus patch there is plenty of food left over for mice after the human crop has been gathered.

Mrs. Frisby and her family were especially lucky in the house itself. It was a slightly damaged cinder block, the hollow kind with two oval holes through it; it had somehow been abandoned in the garden during the summer and lay almost completely buried, with only a bit of one corner showing above ground, which is how Mrs. Frisby had discovered it. It lay on its side in such a way that the solid parts of the block formed a roof and a floor, both waterproof, and the hollows made two spacious rooms. Lined with bits of leaves, grass, cloth, cotton fluff, feathers and other soft things Mrs. Frisby and her children had collected, the house stayed dry, warm and comfortable all winter. A tunnel to the sur-face-earth of the garden, dug so that it was slightly larger than a mouse and slightly smaller than a cat's foreleg, provided access, air, and even a fair amount of light to the living room. The bedroom, formed by the second oval, was warm but dark, even at midday. A short tunnel through the earth behind the block connected the two rooms.

Although she was a widow (her husband had died only the preceding summer), Mrs. Frisby was able, through luck and hard work, to keep her family-there were four children-happy and well fed. January and February were the hardest months; the sharp, hard cold that began in December lasted until March, and by February the beans and black-eyes had been picked over(with help from the birds), the asparagus roots were frozen into stone, and the potatoes had been thawed and refrozen so many times they had acquired a slimy texture and a rancid taste. Still, the Frisbys made the best of what there was, and one way or another they kept from being hungry.

Then, one day at the very end of February, Mrs. Frisby's younger son, Timothy, fell sick.