I read these during November, but they’re too good to let pass without a post. Terry Pratchett has long been a favorite author of mine. But I think he has achieved something special with the Tiffany Aching series. This quartet of novels, I think, should be required reading for every young teenage girl. The witch-in-training, Tiffany, is a great role model for young girls because of her high levels of common sense and her strong sense of responsibility.
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| The Wee Free Men |
The first book in the series, The Wee Free Men, takes place when Tiffany is nine years old. She is the daughter of a long line of shepherds who have lived on the Chalk for centuries. Tiffany is capable, above all else. She’s not particularly nice, in that she does not suffer fools gladly and she doesn’t care overmuch for her snot factory of a younger brother, but she does care deeply in her own way. Even at nine years old, Tiffany wants to see justice done. When her brother is kidnapped by fairies, she does everything in her power (and even some things that she thought were beyond her) to get him back. It might sound a little grim, but this book is hilariously redeemed from that grimness by the Wee Free Men of the title: six inch high pixies that will steal everything that isn’t nailed down. (If it is nailed down, they take the nails, too.) The Wee Free Men help Tiffany in her quest had provide the reader with some typical Pratchett-like comic relief. At the end of the book, Tiffany realizes that she has what it takes to be a witch. In Pratchett’s Discworld, that means that you’re willing to do what needs to be done, what is right.
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| A Hat Full of Sky |
In the second book, A Hat Full of Sky, Tiffany begins her apprenticeship and learns more about the practical side of witchcraft. (About 97% of witchcraft in this world is practical.) After her first magical battle in the first book, Tiffany finds family visits, veterinary medicine, and all the rest dull and–frankly–beneath her. She wonders, if she is capable of magic, why should she be the one to clip lonely old men’s toenails? I supposed you could say that, while the first book was about doing what needed to be done because no one else could, this book is about learning how to deal with the responsibility of power. That is, just because you can, it doesn’t mean that you should. Tiffany learns that lesson the hard way when she is possessed by a spirit that seems to be composed entirely of pride. Once again, Tiffany is assisted in her fight by the Wee Free Men.
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| Wintersmith |
In the third book, Wintersmith, Tiffany continues her apprenticeship and learns an important lesson about what happens when you don’t stop to consider the consequences of your actions and the dangers of thinking you know everything. It’s a small thing, just a dance. But when Tiffany jumps into the middle of an age’s old ritual, she suddenly finds herself responsible for some seriously unseasonable weather and the bitterest winter anyone has ever seen. With the help of the Wee Free Men, Tiffany has to put the balance of the seasons back to rights. It’s a hard lesson, owning up to your mistakes and then fixing them–especially when the screw up is on this kind of scale. While other adults could have helped get her out of the jams of the first two books, there really isn’t anyone else that can help put things right. Even the Wee Free Men can’t do much more than give her minor assistance.
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| I Shall Wear Midnight |
In the last book, I Shall Wear Midnight, we find that it’s not Tiffany who needs to learn a lesson–but her people. This is the darkest book in the quartet. In this book, Pratchett conjures a terrifying villain: the Cunning Man. The Cunning Man used to be a person, before he became the personification of people’s fears of witches. As the Cunning Man begins to manifest once more, Tiffany is being worked to the bone, doing all the unpleasant tasks of taking care of people that other people just don’t want to do. And she does it all without so much as a thank you. More than that, some people actually start to resent her. They feel that she bosses them around. She makes them uncomfortable. She does have the help of the Wee Free Men and of the more senior witches in the land, but once again, there are some things that Tiffany has to do herself. She is only one who can defeat the Cunning Man. It is rather satisfying how things start to fall apart when Tiffany can’t fulfill her self-appointed duties and people learn how much they need her. Even though it’s a dark book, it has a delightfully warm ending.
I really wish that these books had been around when I was younger. Tiffany is a such a strong person, that I think she inspires strength in others. With a few exceptions, like Katniss Everdeen, there are few other female role models in young adult fiction that I think are truly great. If you know a young girl in need of something to read, recommend these.