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Junior
Doubleday
Hardback £12.99
ISBN: 0385607369
Reviewed by Mary Hoffman
[Armadillo 6.2 Summer 2004]
This is a sort of sequel to The Wee Free Men, which won the WHSmith Teen Award, in spite of its protagonist being (implausibly) nine years old. Tiffany Aching is now eleven and still revered by the Nac Mac Feegle. These latter are tiny blue men (there are hardly any Feegle females ¨ they are like Queen bees) who say øCrivens!" a lot, are enormously strong and a bit thick. Think little Picts rather than Pixies.
They all inhabit the Discworld, created by Pratchett in novels for older readers, which now number in the high 20s. Indeed, some characters from the more adult series fashionably cross over into these junior books, like the formidable Granny Weatherwax.
In this new øStory of Discworld", Tiffany has to prove herself as a witch. But being a Pratchett witch, the person she has to prove it to is herself. He has always been good at showing up the silver jewellery and lacy black clothing type of would-be witch but now he has gone the whole hog about Tiffany, her real grandmother and Granny Weatherwax.
They are women in tune with nature, so instinctive and knowledgeable about the bones of the earth and the cycle of the seasons that they have no need of paraphernalia like pointy hats ¨ the whole sky is their headgear. Hence the title. That is the high serious theme and it is craftily interwoven with the low comedy of the little blue men. Tiffanys body is taken over by a Hiver, a formless, parasitic evil spirit from the beginning of time and one of the things it does with it is make her be mean to people. But it doesnt stand a chance against a girl respected by Esmerelda Weatherwax and aided by the Nac Mac Feegle, does it?