Book Review: The Wee Free Men

By Matt Berman

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What Parents Should Know
If you like doing accents and voices, this could be a great read-aloud, which would also give you the chance to discuss some of the more difficult parts and the clever humor.

Common Sense Media Review
Pratchett has an uncanny ability to create an unusual and creative adventure, combine it with layers of symbolism, myth, and cultural detail, and then wrap the whole package in the kind of sparkling wit that rewards intelligence and careful reading. There's a reason he's such a favorite with gifted children and teens; as with his other novels, readers will come away from this feeling that they've had something to chew on, a full and varied banquet, not the usual thin gruel of ordinary stories.

There are many delightful creations here, primarily, of course, the Nac Mac Feegle themselves. Whenever they're on stage, the story fairly sizzles with wit and invention. Equally wonderful, though in a very different way, are the flashbacks to Tiffany's Granny Aching, an old sheepherder whose hardheaded wisdom is the product of a life lived in the chalk hills, and is reflected in her granddaughter. And Tiffany herself, busily clanging monsters with her frying pan while wondering about magic, is a more than winning heroine.

In fact, one of the many unusual elements of this unusual fantasy is that the heroes are all far more interesting than the villains. The evil Queen and her minions have an intentional cardboard two-dimensionality to them; they're just nightmares, scary at times certainly, but no more. This isn't their story, after all, and unlike so many other authors, Pratchett doesn't lose control of them or let them take over; he knows how to keep a villain in her place.

From the book:
She ran out of her hiding place with the frying pan swinging like a bat. The screaming monster, leaping out of the water, met the frying pan coming the other way with a clang.
It was a good clang, with the oiyoiyoioioioioioinnnnnnnnngggggggg that is the mark of a clang well done.
The creature hung there for a moment, a few teeth and bits of green weed splashing into the water, then slid down slowly and sank with some massive bubbles.