What Is the Story “The Great Rat Hunt” About?
“The Great Rat Hunt” is a story about the growth and maturation of a father and son’s bond as they both work to eliminate a rat who has taken up residence in their family’s grocery store. The story is by Laurence Yep who was born in San Francisco on June 14, 1948.
Yep’s childhood in San Francisco was characterized by consistent feelings of loneliness, alienation and separation as he navigated the cultural lines between his Chinese and American heritage. In lieu of his experiences as a child, many of his literary works examine the theme of being an outsider or a stranger in a given situation.
Yep’s first story was published in the science fiction pulp magazine Worlds Fifth when he was eighteen years old. His first novel, Sweetwater, was published five years later on January 1st, 1973. Yep attended Marquette University in 1966, graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1970, and received his PHD in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Yep received the Boston Globe – Horn Book Award in 1977, followed by the Phoenix Award in 1995. Finally, in 2005, Yep was presented with the biennial Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for his substantial contributions to children’s literature.
