Bookish Thoughts

Re-reading the Tiffany Aching books has been a joy. Pratchett is at the height of his game here, and these books are basically perfect. I can't wait to share these books with my kid, and in the meantime I've been pushing them on all the neighborhood kids. Though they're mostly still too young for them, too. (Actually, my proudest moment was when a conservative mom was asking me for book recs for her daughter, and I convinced her to buy a series by beloved anarchist Ursula K LeGuin). Anyway, this is the second of Tiffany Aching's adventures. She's leaving home to spend some time as an apprentice to a witch. She meets some other witches her own age, learns that being a witch is mostly doing things that other people don't want to do, and has to deal with a hiver to boot. The hiver is a collection of sense and memories that takes over bodies, collecting new memories and basically doing whatever it wants. It's attracted to power, so it's attracted to Tiff...

It was a lot of fun to re-read The Wee Free Men  at the same time as the Fairyland  books. Tiffany Aching and September have a lot in common, and if they were ever to meet I think they'd be friends. Except that Tiffany may have been able to warn September about the fairies. But I'm getting ahead of myself. In this book, nine-year-old Tiffany starts to discover her destiny. Which isn't written in the stars so much as it's written in her bones. Tiffany is the second-youngest child in a large farm family. She was the baby until her younger brother, Wentworth, the long-awaited son, came along and stole all the attention from her. So now she watches him and does her chores and misses her grandmother. But the the fairy queen shows up and kidnaps Wentworth. And Tiffany, practical, angry Tiffany, who kind of resents her brother for being born, doesn't hesitate to set out looking for him. With the help of the Nac Mac Feegle, the titular Wee Free Men, she begins to learn ...

I didn't cry when Terry Pratchett died. This was a combination of many things. I've known he was sick since before I began reading his books. I've known that he was living on borrowed time. In his later years he emerged as a strong advocate for assisted death, and it was always his stance that he wanted to die before he lost his mind completely. Before he stopped being himself. I made peace with that early in my relationship with his books, so when I learned that he died in his bed surrounded by family having recently finished his final book, well it seemed like a close second to his stated desire to die while sitting in the backyard with a nice glass of whiskey. There was also the fact that I learned this news on the ski slope in Colorado shortly before a wedding. Grief wasn't an emotion I was willing to experience that weekend. I could push it back, so I did. When his final book was released, I read a review and started crying. When I finally bought the book, ...

I Shall Wear Midnight is the finally book in the Tiffany Aching YA subseries of Terry Pratchett's sprawling Discworld series. Or at least it's the latest. There doesn't need to be another one, which is good since Pratchett may not live to write one. But the door is open for another chapter in young Tiffany's life. Then again, this novel is a pretty fitting conclusion to Tiffany's story. In as much as any story on the Discworld gets a conclusion. Or any life really. The first of the four books in this miniseries began with Tiffany deciding to become a witch and setting down on that path. This book concludes with her being accepted as a peer by the other witches in Lancre. Along the way there have been plenty of adventures. The evil in this book is more insidious, harder to pin down and easier to spread. It's fitting that Tiffany doesn't destroy it so much as fight it off for another generation. The whispered rumors that turn people against ...

Wintersmith  is yet another of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. It's the third in Tiffany Aching's arc, the subseries aimed at a younger audience. I picked it up because it was snowing and I was in the mood for something wintry. The more I read about Tiffany Aching, the more I fall in love with her. She's incredibly smart and resourceful. She makes mistakes, because she's still growing and learning, and then she owns them. She does everything in her power to set things right, understanding the difference between something being her fault and it being her responsibility. In this book, inspired by the music, she decides to dance at a winter festival, despite the warnings of her elders. Doing so attracts the attention of the God of Winter, who accidentally falls in love with Tiffany instead of Summer. This happens at the same time as Tiffany is navigating the beginning of something more than friendship with a boy she's known for years. The pitfa...

A Hat Full of Sky  is the second book in the Tiffany Aching arc, and the 32nd book in Terry Pratchett's Discworld  series. It picks up two years after the events of The Wee Free Men  and follows Tiffany as she leaves home to become apprentice to a witch named Miss Level. In her impatience to learn "real' magic, Tiffany starts casting spells beyond her ability and leaves herself open to possession. It's up to the Nac Mac Feegle to rescue her (though she actually ends up rescuing herself quite handily with a bit of help from them). I really like this book, and Tiffany is really growing on me as a character. She's definitely being set up as a young Granny Weatherwax. Since Granny may be one of my favorite literary characters, seeing her at 11 years old is a real treat. All that power with very little experience is definitely going to result in some wisdom in a few decades. For now, it just means exciting adventures. Watching Tiffany get into messes and...

I skipped ahead a bit in my consumption of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Part of it was that I momentarily forgot which order the books were in (I just bought three and got a bit confused) and part of it was that I was so excited to dive into the Tiffany Aching arc. Unlike the rest of Discworld , which is aimed at adults, the Tiffany Aching subseries is YA. Tiffany is a nine-year-old witch in training who must save her baby brother from "The Queen". The plot is familiar. And the story hits many of the same beats as The Snow Queen ; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; The Golden Compass; and Labyrinth . Ultimately the young girl saves the boy who has been kidnapped by outwitting or otherwise defeating the Queen (or Rebel, Rebel King) who is holding him hostage. That's not the point. It's the details that make a story like this worth revisiting. Is the Queen sufficiently scary? Is the danger real, but not so extreme as to present an imp...