The Wee Free Men: (Discworld Novel 30) (Discworld Novels) [Paperback]

When you have an author as good as Terry Pratchett writing for children, you expect that the result will be a novel of great invention, assured comic timing and a generally all-round highly readable fantasy tour de force. Readers of The Wee Free Men will not be disappointed. After winning the prestigious Carnegie Medal award for his previous story of Discworld for younger readers, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, Pratchett has followed up with another irresistibly entertaining adventure.

Miss Perspicacia Tick, a witch of some renown, is worried about a ripple in the walls of the universe--probably another world making contact. Which is not good. This errant activity is centred on some chalk country--where traditionally good witches simply do not grow well. Fortunately, Miss Tiffany Aching of Home Farm on The Chalk, nine years old, misunderstood and yearning for excitement, wants to be a witch and has just proved herself to be of great potential by whacking a big Green Monster from the river with a huge frying pan while using her annoying younger brother as bait. Miss Tick is impressed. So, after travelling to the chalky downs at once and dispensing some stop gap advice to Tiffany about holding the fort until she gets back with more help, Miss Tick is off.

Any hesitation Tiffany may have had about the seriousness of the situation expires when the Queen of the fairies kidnaps her younger brother. With the help of a talking frog, loaned by Miss Tick, and an army of thieving, warmongering, nippy, boozy wee free men called the Nac Mac Feegle (who used to work for the Queen but rebelled), Tiffany sets off rescue her kin.

There's humour at every turn, and the situations that follow are both wonderfully dramatic and preposterously unreal. Pratchett really is the master of his genre and it's difficult to imagine a more entertaining read. (Age 10 and over) --John McLay --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

"Hilarious, brilliantly constructed and shot through with an edginess to balance the laughs." -- "SFX Magazine"
"Ethically challenging, beautifully orchestrated, philosophically opposed to the usual plot fixes of fantasy." -- "Guardian"
"A passion for language, wordplay and puns bursts from the pages." -- "Daily Telegraph"

"From the Hardcover edition." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Hilarious, brilliantly constructed and shot through with an edginess to balance the laughs." -- "SFX Magazine"
"Ethically challenging, beautifully orchestrated, philosophically opposed to the usual plot fixes of fantasy." -- "Guardian"
"A passion for language, wordplay and puns bursts from the pages." -- "Daily Telegraph"

A riotous, wise, and gripping junior Discworld novel from the Carnegie Medal-winning author and acknowledged master of comic fantasy.

Nine-year-old Tiffany Aching thinks her Granny Aching - a wise shepherd - might have been a witch, but now Granny Aching is dead and it's up to Tiffany to work it all out when strange things begin happening: a fairy-tale monster in the stream, a headless horseman and, strangest of all, the tiny blue men in kilts, the Wee Free Men, who have come looking for the new 'hag'. These are the Nac Mac Feegles, the pictsies, who like nothing better than thievin', fightin' and drinkin'. Then Tiffany's young brother goes missing and Tiffany and the Wee Free Men must join forces to save him from the Queen of the Fairies . . .

Every land needs its own witch.

Enter Tiffany Aching . . .

Up on the Wold, there's a monster in the river and a headless horseman in the drive. And now Granny Aching has gone, there's only young Tiffany Aching left to guard the boundaries. To stop . . . things getting through.

It's her land. Her duty.

But it's amazing how useful a horde of unruly pictsies can be - as long as they are pointed in the right direction and can stop fighting each other first . . .

THE FIRST BOOK IN THE TIFFANY ACHING SEQUENCE

'Crivens! There's nae a better tale o' magic and adventure on the Disc' Rob Anybody, Big Man of the Nac Mac Feegle

'Quite, quite brilliant' Starburst

Terry Pratchett is the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. In all, he is the author of fifty bestselling books. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he is the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, as well as being awarded a knighthood for services to literature. Worldwide sales of his books now stand at 70 million, and they have been translated into thirty-seven languages.