It's nice reading a juvie fiction book that doesn't focus on emo/goth vampires, or burgeoning teen sexuality. Nimh is what juvie fiction should be, like a Pixar movie, that's not dumbed down to children. O'Brien did a marvelous job in creating metaphors for the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the one, or the few, the perils of science, adaptability, and ecology. Great stuff.