Book Review: The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

I am totally hooked on the brilliant writer Terry Pratchett's books. I've got about two dozen of them on my book shelf and am always on the look out for new ones. He has written dozens of stories, including the wonderfully entertaining Disc World series.

I want to share the Wee Free men series of books first because that is where I first discovered the magic of Terry Pratchett. I was browsing at the local book shop and saw a paperback with all these little blue men on the cover, and thought, this looks like my kind of book.

The Wee Free Men is a wonderful tale of witches, and barons, and traveling teachers, fae folk and regular folk. I laughed out loud, then read it to my kids. The main character is Tiffany Aching, the English daughter of a sheep ranching family. She lives on the Chalk, a place of rolling waves of grass growing on white chalk.

There is even a wonderful reference to the famous Uffington horse carved into the chalk, presumable during the Iron age. My daughters and I looked it up on the internet and saw pictures of the horse, and the giant too.

It's the kind of story that prompts you and your kids to want to learn the real history of a place. Tiffany's Granny Aching, suspiciously like a witch herself, was highly thought of in their sheep raising community and lived alone in a small hut where Tiffany goes to remember her, and discovers the burrow of the Wee Free Men.

About the Reviewer: Lovie Snippets, also known as Charlie, artist of Faerywhere Masks and Frogworks, lives with her family and numerous pets in the woods of northern California. She makes leather masks and cruelty-free feather jewelry, using feathers from the family's pet birds. She enjoys gardening, foraging for wild foods, and herbalogy.