Terry Pratchett was so good. With this review, I shall continue my biannual tradition of being unable to write coherently about a five-star Discworld book.
This is the second Tiffany Aching book, which is set in the Discworld with his adult books, but this is technically middle grade, verging on YA. I say technically because any adult who wouldn’t enjoy this has a piece of coal for a heart and loops of iron chain for intestines.
I really liked the first Tiffany Aching book, but I loved this one. Tiffany is now eleven years old, and is leaving the Chalk for the first time in her life to go apprentice (essentially) with another witch named Miss Level. But on her way out, she catches the attention of an extremely dangerous magical creature, and the only people who know it’s on her trail are the Nac Mac Feegle, the tiny blue aggressive, drunken, essentially Scottish fairies whose favorite pastimes are kicking and stealing things. Tiffany is their “big wee hag” and they have to save her, because her life is linked to the land she lives on, and it will suffer if something happens to her.
Every single thing the Nac Mac Feegles do brings me joy. Their mangled verbiage, their weirdly gentle aggression. Their inability to leave pubs. The way Rob Anybody says “ships” instead of “sheep.” The excerpt from the fictional book about fairies written by Miss Tick at the beginning of the book made me laugh just as much as the rest of it. There is a glossary. I read it like three times before I moved on to the actual story just so I could continue giggling.
And on the other end of the spectrum we have a genuinely moving story about identity and being true to yourself, which is handled with a staggering amount of subtlety when you consider this is book featuring a joke about dozens of small blue men forming a scarecrow man, and on a carriage ride, one of them forgets he’s in disguise and walks out the fly of the pants they are all wearing.
Loved it.
