The Wee Free Men - Book 11

First an update on Howl's Moving Castle.  My husband and I watched the movie.  While the animation was amazing, they almost completely re-wrote the plot.  It was, as R said, 'trippy.'  It didn't make sense and it went really heavy handed on the love story which I actually thought was well done in the book, in that I liked its understated quality.  The director went for a darker, steampunk atmosphere and the only humor was Billy Crystal miscast as Calcipher, the fire demon.

Then I moved on to my second March Magics book, The Wee Free Men. 

I found this book pure pleasure. Unfortunately, I didn't read it as fast I should have.  I'm just in a really low read period right now for some reason.  So again because I was reading it in such short bits at night right before I conked out I would get confused about what was going on.  Still, I highly enjoyed it as I slowly read it.  Pratchett is so funny.  The girl who is the main character is a 9 year old, wise for her years, Tiffany Aching.  She lives on the 'Chalk'  in some Scottish type landscape, where her family runs a dairy.  Tiffany is good at making cheese.  Her beloved Granny Aching was a renown shepherdess who smoked a pipe, seldom talked and had two amazing sheep dogs, Thunder and Lightning.  Certain strange, magical (and humorous) encounters happen to Tiffany and then suddenly her little brother goes missing and she must be the one to get him back.  Off she goes on a crazy adventure of slapstick comedy and self-discovery to get him back, with the help of a toad and an army of the Wee Free Men. 

This book was a blend of fairy tale and Monty Python-esque humor.  R is now on a Pratchett jag.  We even started watching (but got interrupted) the BBC 3 episode mini-series The Color of Magic.  It seemed really good with a great cast of actors, so hopefully we'll finish watching it at some point.

I'm glad I finally read a Terry Pratchett book.  I will probably read more in the future, even though, truth be told, fantasy still isn't my genre.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.