Lots of people I know, including my wife, keep telling me that I really ought to like Terry Pratchett, and Ive tried a few times but havent. Except for I just finished reading the Tiffany Aching books and loved them.
The Problem
Its just that I havent cared much about the people in the books. I admire the cynical wisecracking, often brilliant, and the sparkling imagination in the literary set construction and scene-painting. I mean, what if Death did have an apprentice?
But too often, the sequence Im reading feels like a an elaborate setup for a (usually very good) punchline, and Im not sure that Pratchett actually cares about the people hes put on the pages, and what happens to them. So why should I?
Nac Mac Feegles
These are the Wee Free Men of the first books title; a tribe of tiny troublesome undisciplined nosy warriors who serve sort of as the chorus does in a classic Greek play. Theyre a blast.
The protagonist is Tiffany Aching, a young witch where witching is serious business; serious as in sometimes dreary and scary and wearing.
And yes, Pratchett fans, theres all the cynical wisecracking anyone could want. But he takes way more care than in his adult stories to keep the focus on his people; what they see and hear and feel and fear. And one does (or, well, I did) come to care quite a lot about the underappreciated Ms Aching and her problems.
Highly recommended. And now my 13-year-old is powering through them, so they work for kids too.