The Tiffany Aching Collection by Terry Pratchett

One of my favorite characters in literature is the young witch, Tiffany Aching, from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. I rarely reread books, but I no sooner finished the last in the series, I Shall Wear Midnight, when I started rereading The Wee Free Men again. I think it was better the second time round.  

Before you read any farther, let go your preconceptions of witchcraft. Tiffany Aching is most definitely not that sort of witch. Just to start, how many witches have you encountered who are encumbered with a clan of little people? The Nac Mac Feegles (also known as the Wee Free Men) are Pictsies, a kind of Gaelic fairy folk, (but don’t say the word fairy in front of them if you wish to keep your teeth.) They are a boisterous bunch of six inch, blue skinned, kilted little people who love to steal, drink, fight, and tell lies. They are exceptionally good at all of it. They make their home in a mound on the Chalk. Tiffany, being the witch of the Chalk, is their “big wee hag.” Much to Tiffany’s chagrin, the Nac Mac Feegles are near her all the time.  

In The Wee Free Men, then eight years old, Tiffany’s fairy tale notions of witchcraft are dispelled when she meets the witch finder, Miss Tick.  Miss Tick informs her, “Once you learn about magic, I mean really learn about magic, learn everything you can learn about magic, then you’ve still got the most important lesson still to learn... Not to use it. Witches don’t use magic unless they really have to. It’s hard work and difficult to control. We do other things. A witch pays attention to everything that’s going on. A witch uses her head. A witch is sure of herself. A witch always has a piece of string…. A witch delights in small details. A witch sees through things and round things. A witch sees further than most. A witch sees things from the other side. A witch knows where she is and when she is..”  

For the main part, Tiffany doesn’t really even practice magic. Mostly being a witch is just being in the center of things, being aware of what is going on in her community and looking out for her people. In involves cutting old people’s toenails, mending cuts and broken bones, birthing babies, and tending to the dying. 

When necessary, Tiffany can, of course, do all kinds of extraordinary things; things like taking pain away, transferring heat and cold, and seeing into the future (when she can get her jumble to work properly) But to Tiffany this isn’t magic, it is just something you learn to do, only you have to be a witch to learn to do it. She can step out of her body and travel away from it for a time, and has learned the trick of becoming invisible – but these skills are more connected to particle physics, than some kind of hocus pocus. 

It isn’t easy being a witch. Tiffany must strive to act ethically at all times. It involves having to make decisions: sometimes between right and wrong, and sometimes between wrong and wrong. The thing is - being a witch means you must make them. In Tiffany’s case, this involves layers of thinking. She has her first, her second, her third and sometimes even her fourth thoughts before she is finished.  

While the everyday life of a witch can be tediously humdrum, Tiffany manages to get herself into some very tricky situations. In spite of her age and lack of experience, in The Wee Free Men, she manages to rescue her little bother, Wentworth, and the Baron’s son, Roland, from the Queen of the Elves. It is a gripping adventure wherein a talking toad, the Nac Mac Feegles and a frying pan play important roles in the rescue.  

A Hat Full Of Sky takes us into Tiffany’s life as she apprentices to become a witch. Apprenticing involves looking after an older, wiser witch, and learning from them. Occasionally she learns a trick or two, but it is pretty much constant drudgery. Young witches like Tiffany accompany their mentors as they go about their witch business – looking after the sick and elderly, and learning to be the caretaker of a community.  

Unbeknownst to Tiffany, her secret trick of stepping out of her body has attracted the attention of a Hiver. It manages to take control of her body and abuses her power. With the help of the Nac Mac Feegles and Miss Level, they manage to drive the Hiver off. Eventually Tiffany and another older witch, Mistress Weatherwax, capture it. I guarantee the ending will not be what you might anticipate. 

In Wintersmith, the third novel, Tiffany ignores her mentor, and ends up dancing with Winter. He unfortunately gets in a muddle and falls in love with her. In his wooing of her, he creates snowflakes and icebergs in her image. The balance between the seasons goes off kilter as Winter brings on a blizzard that buries the chalk and everything on it. Tiffany takes on the power of summer and strange things happen as plants sprout from her feet and the world turns green where she walks. Tiffany must fix the mess she has inadvertently created before everyone she knows and loves dies.  

In the last book in the series, I Shall Wear Midnight, Tiffany is now the fully-fledged witch of the chalk. The baron dies and Roland, his son, takes over. Roland has gotten himself engaged to a weepy, but beautiful, princess with a tartar for a mother. Tiffany's conflicted feelings about his engagement are compounded by his no longer seeming to be her friend.  On top of this, a powerful demonic spirit, the Cunning Man, is stalking her. The Cunning Man despises all witches and uses his powers to fill minds with suspicion and hate towards them. Tiffany must defeat him, because if she doesn’t, and he manages to take over her body, the other witches will have to destroy her. Thankfully Tiffany has many allies, including new witches, a promising young man, and the fearless Nac Mac Feegles to help her.  

While these novels are part of a series, I found each one to be a satisfying read unto itself. Each is punctuated with deep philosophical musings, some serious dictum for how to live a rich meaningful life, and bouts of screaming hilarity (mostly, but not always, due to the Nac Mac Feegles.) The main characters feel like old friends who have invited me to hang out with them for a while. I hate it when the visit ends, and look forward to my next encounter.  

Due to Terry Pratchett’s battle with Alzheimer’s, it is unlikely there will be more Tiffany Aching books. 
I am heartbroken.

Your Own, Sylvia: a Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill

Sylvia Plath poetry needs to be spoken out loud and listened to.
Her words are sharp as diamonds – a dark necklace that sparkles and cuts at the same time. It is not for the faint of heart.
In 1973, the year I was 20, I was introduced to her work through The Bell Jar.  I read it out loud while traveling with a friend from Kamloops to Vancouver. We were both hooked. I couldn’t stop coming back for more. I read everything of hers I could get my hands on.

This book about her life came to my attention as a runner up for the Michael Printz award (an award for best young adult novels - if you read nothing else, read the books on this list)  
Your Own Sylvia has been around for a while, but I recently found it as an audio book and got it.

I just finished it.

I loved it.
 Hemphill tells Sylvia’s life story in verse. While it is fiction, it is based on real events and real characters. The reader (or in my case) listener gets to know her through the different poetry and different voices of these many characters.  Like Sylvia's life, this book will take you on an emotional roller coaster.  
I was completely enthralled.  
I loved for her.
I hated for her.  
I wept for her. 
Most of all, 
I feared for her.

I loved it.
I learned much more about Sylvia Plath’s life, but at the same time came away wanting to know more.
I was introduced to different categories of poetry. I want to go back and reread Plath’s work to find them. 
I came to understand more profoundly what it meant to be a woman - an incredibly brilliant women during the 40's 50's and 60's.  If she were alive, she would be a year older than my mother.  I am left full of questions to ask my mother about her experiences growing up in those times.

This is a truly glorious book. But alas, not one I will get for our elementary school library. I will however be getting one for my own bookshelf.
I loved it.

Celebrating Freedom To Read

Because it's Freedom to Read Week, here are some of my favorite banned or challenged books.

As parents with small children I don’t know what we would have done without Maurice Sendak. My boys loved Where The Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen. That meant that my partner and I read them over and over again. The first is the story of a boy who gets angry with his mother and imagines running away to land where the wild things are. In the Night Kitchen is the charming story of a boy visiting a bakery in the middle of the night.


Another glorious picture book is Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola. All the Strega books are delightful tales of an Italian witch. In this one, Big Anthony, her assistant, gets into trouble with her magic pasta pot.

Crow Boy by Taro Yashima is the story of a boy who overcomes the prejudices of his classmates when they discover his special abilities.

A large number of what we now call classics continue to be challenged – titles like Charlotte’s Web by EB White. This story of friendship between Wilbur the pig and Charlotte the spider, is truly exquisitely written. When I was in grade 5, my teacher read it to us at school. It is the first (and almost only) recollection I have of any teacher reading a book out loud.




Katherine Paterson, who isn’t afraid to tackle difficult subjects, has at least two books on the list.  Bridge to Terabithia is the story of two friends who create a magical world and then one of them dies in a tragic accident. The Great Gilly Hopkins is the powerful story of a girl in foster care. My nephew’s teacher read it to his class. He came home at the end of each day and told his mom all about it. It was the book that got him excited about reading novels.



Lois Lowry has quite a few books on the list as well. I love all the Anastasia books and managed to get a number of girls hooked on books with her adventures. Two of them, Anastasia Krupnik and Anastasia at Your Service are on the list. Anastasia is the kind of daughter I would have loved and been proud of. Another book by Lowry is The Giver, a dystopian novel about a young man who comes to realize the dark underbelly of his society.



Jerry Spinelli is another of my favorite writers who has some great reads on the list. Maniac Magee is the story of boy who becomes a legend in his own time. It reads like poetry. Frindle and Loser are also there.

One of my all time favorite books, The Watsons go to Birmingham – 1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis,is on the list. It is the story of a black family from Flint Michigan who go to visit their grandmother in Birmingham at a time when white people were bombing black churches. It is the story of how their lives are forever changed from the events of that summer.

Most of the characters in these novels cope with real issues and problems. They are the kinds of books that foster creative and critical thinking.They also happen to win awards

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

WOW!
Ship Breaker hooked me in the first paragraph. I remained horrifically spellbound throughout. Now that I am finished, it still won’t let me go.
It is dark, depressing, and desperate, forewarning an all too plausible future. Even more distressing, it is one that exists, even now, in places on our planet.
The futuristic world of the novel is set in the Gulf of Mexico, a landscape reconfigured by the ravages of global warming. It is a world run by feuding corporate clans, a world where the divide between rich and poor has become catastrophic. The 99% live in abject poverty across the globe. Oil tankers have been replaced with more efficient, environmentally friendly hydrogen powered clipper ships. It is a world where human beings have been modified using the genetics of other animals to create a breed of half men.
Nailer, the main character, lives with his abusive father, Richard Lopez, in a shack on the beach. Nailer and his crew work to salvage copper wires from the abandoned ships. They work in dirty, dangerous conditions for little pay. If their existence is bleak, their future is bleaker still.
Nailer survives a near fatal accident and betrayal by a fellow crew member. Then a ‘city killer storm’ hits the community. In its wake Nailer and his friend, Pima, discover their ‘lucky strike’ - the wreck of a clipper ship. In the process of removing enough wealth to keep them rich forever, they come upon a survivor, Nita. Nita is ‘swank’ - a member of the wealthy clan that controls their lives. Caught up in a power struggle between rival clans, her ship was chased into the ‘city killer storm’ to escape her father’s enemies. Pima and Nailer rescue her, but before the three young people manage to get themselves to safety, are discovered by a crew of scavengers led by Nailer’s evil, drug-addled father.
Pima’s mother, Sadna, and her crew, rescue them. In an attempt to escape from Richard Lopez and enemies of Nita's father; Nailer, Nita and the half man, Tool, jump a moving train and set out to ‘Orleans’ in search of a ship still loyal to Nita’s shipping clan.
Don’t fret, there is much more before the story comes to a realistic and satisfying conclusion.
Ship Breaker is written from a guy’s perspective, but it won’t deter girls from complete engagement. It is a fabulous adventure full of ample action and suspense. But it is so much more. It is a book that creates situations where the reader is forced to contemplate deeper existential dilemmas. It engages us in the struggle to do what is morally right in spite of great temptation. It examines what constitutes family and loyalty. It scrutinizes organ donation and environmental degradation. It seduces us into exploring what it means to be human.
Ultimately, it may well be a terrifying harbinger of what is on the way for much of humanity.
Fans of Little Brother, The Hunger Games and The Maze will surely enjoy it. Because of the violence, I wouldn’t recommend it for students younger than 11 or 12.
I'm ready for The Drowned Cities, the sequel to this one.

The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade

This book has been in the library for some time, but the cover turned me off. I should have known better since I loved Dust, one of Arthur Slade’s earlier works. It‘s my increasing fascination for steam punk that made me decide to give this book a try.

I was not disappointed.

Rumors of an extraordinary creature sent Mr. Socrates to a Gypsy freak show where he discovered a malformed, grotesque infant inside a cage. Disappointed, he was turning to leave when the child managed to shape shift his features to make himself look less hideous.

Mr. Socrates purchased the child and brought him to England were he was raised to be a secret agent. Two caretakers, his nanny, Mrs. Finchley, and Tharpa, his martial arts instructor, accepted him as he is. By the age of 14 Modo, can transform his body and facial features for periods of time.

He is tested by being dropped of in the center of London with nothing but the clothes on his back. It is the first time Modo has been out of his house, never mind such a large city, yet he survived and created employment for himself as a finder.

Then a young woman asks him to find out what her brother is up to when he goes out at night. Modo follows the young man to a house but in his attempt to infiltrate the group, is exposed. Following a brief encounter with strange steam powered super men and the evil Miss Hakkandottir and her robotic hand, he is chained to a wall and left to die in a burning building.

He barely escapes and manages to make it back to his room. When he tracks down the young woman who sent him on the quest it turns out that she is also one of Mr. Socrates secret agents.

Octvia and Modo are caught up in the middle of a struggle between Mr. Socrates and his Permanent Association, and The Clockwork Guild run by Mrs. Hakkandottir and an evil genius scientist, Dr Hyde.

Children all over London have gone missing - kidnapped by Dr. Hyde to be used as experiments for his nefarious purposes.

Then Mr. Socrates and Tharper go missing and it is left for the two children to save the day.

I was drawn into the book from the first  because of the air of mystery. What I ended up really enjoying was how well Modo and Octavia are developed as characters. I also loved the adventure, the suspense, and of course the hint of romance.

Can’t wait to get my hands on The Dark Deep, the next one in the series.

If you want to find out more, check out the website where you can read and or listen to parts of the book and or watch videos.

http://www.hunchbackassignments.com/

Organizing the Book Shelves.....

Just for fun....

Thanks to Maryanne for sending me the link to this video.

We won't be doing this at Dickens' library any  time soon!

Icefall by Matthew J Kirby

Icefall by Matthew J Kirby

I didn’t love it, but I liked it a lot. It was indeed a fine read.

It is about betrayal. It is about telling stories. It is about becoming who you are meant to be. It is about looking below the surface to find people as they really are. It is a suspenseful mystery.
There, that sounds good doesn’t it?
It is beautifully written. Viking history and sense of place in time are elegantly portrayed.
“The fjord is freezing over. I watch it from the cliff near our hall, and each day the ice claims more of the narrow winding of ocean. It squeezes out the waves and the blue-black water, while it squeezes us in. Just as Father intended it to. Winter is here to wall us up, to bury us in snow and keep us safe.
Today, there is a cold wind that bears no other smell but the ghostly scent of frost. I feel it through my furs and woolen dress, down to my skin…
All of the sky looks like a burnt log in the morning hearth, cold, spent, ashen.”
Those snippets are just from the first few pages!
Solveig and her two siblings, Asa and Harald, have been sent by their father, the king, to a remote fjord for their own safety. As winter encroaches and their food dwindles, they wait for a summons home. When a ship finally arrives, it carries a small contingent of berserkers who have been sent to keep them safe throughout the winter. Alric, the skald, (story teller) has accompanied them.
Solveig is the middle child and a girl. Asa, her older sister, is valued for her beauty, and Harald, her younger brother, because he is the heir. Plain Solveig is seen by herself and her father as having no value.
Then Alric takes her on as an apprentice skald and Solveig starts to come into her own power and confidence.
As winter advances Solveig’s ominous dream appears to be coming true. Terror seizes them as they face poison, sabotage and treachery. The royal family have no idea who they can trust.
There are stories within stories inside this book. I loved the seamless integration of Norse Myth into the main body of the tale. I loved the adventure. I loved the characters. I liked that even the villains were complex characters.
I loved the ruminations on the truth of stories. “A story is not a thing. A story is an act. It only exists in the brief moment of its telling… I begin to let myself believe my own story, that my words can summon shield-maidens. That my stories can shape the world…” 
 
I wanted to like this book more than I did. The reviews were great - I was prepared to be wowed. Perhaps that was the problem. Nothing really lives up to such high expectations. In spite of all this, I might even reread this one.