The Wee Free Men (Discworld) (Mass Market Paperback)

by Terry Pratchett (Author) "Some things start before other things..." (more)
Key Phrases: faerie tales, old kelda, china shepherdess, Rob Anybody, Miss Tick, Granny Aching (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Nine-year-old Tiffany Aching needs magic--fast! Her sticky little brother Wentworth has been spirited away by the evil Queen of faerie, and it’s up to her to get him back safely. Having already decided to grow up to be a witch, now all Tiffany has to do is find her power. But she quickly learns that it’s not all black cats and broomsticks. According to her witchy mentor Miss Tick, "Witches don’t use magic unless they really have to...We do other things. A witch pays attention to everything that’s going on...A witch uses her head...A witch always has a piece of string!" Luckily, besides her trusty string, Tiffany’s also got the Nac Mac Feegles, or the Wee Free Men on her side. Small, blue, and heavily tattooed, the Feegles love nothing more than a good fight except maybe a drop of strong drink! Tiffany, heavily armed with an iron skillet, the feisty Feegles, and a talking toad on loan from Miss Tick, is a formidable adversary. But the Queen has a few tricks of her own, most of them deadly. Tiffany and the Feegles might get more than they bargained for on the flip side of Faerie! Prolific fantasy author Terry Pratchett has served up another delicious helping of his famed Discworld fare. The not-quite-teen set will delight in the Feegles’ spicy, irreverent dialogue and Tiffany’s salty determination. Novices to Pratchett’s prose will find much to like here, and quickly go back to devour the rest of his Discworld offerings. Scrumptiously recommended. (Ages 10 to 14) --Jennifer Hubert --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal
Grade 5-7-Tiffany, an extremely competent nine-year-old, takes care of her irritating brother, makes good cheese on her father's farm, and knows how to keep secrets. When monsters from Fairyland invade her world and her brother disappears, Tiffany, armed only with her courage, clear-sightedness, a manual of sheep diseases, and an iron frying pan, goes off to find him. Her search leads her to a showdown with the Fairy Queen. It is clear from the beginning that Tiffany is a witch, and a mighty powerful one. The book is full of witty dialogue and a wacky cast of characters, including a toad (formerly a lawyer). Much of the humor is supplied by the alcohol-swilling, sheep-stealing pictsies, the Wee Free Men of the title, who are six-inches high and speak in a broad Scottish brogue. (The fact that readers will not understand some of the dialect won't matter, as Tiffany doesn't understand either, and it is all part of the joke.) These terrors of the fairy world are Tiffany's allies, and she becomes their temporary leader as they help her search for the Fairy Queen. Once the story moves into Fairyland it becomes more complex, with different levels of dream states (or, rather, nightmares) and reality interweaving. Tiffany's witchcraft eschews the flamboyant tricks of wizards; it is quiet, inconspicuous magic, grounded in the earth and tempered with compassion, wisdom, and justice for common folk. Not as outrageous and perhaps not as inventive as The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (HarperCollins, 2001), The Wee Free Men has a deeper, more human interest and is likely to have wider appeal. All in all, this is a funny and thought-provoking fantasy, with powerfully visual scenes and characters that remain with readers. A glorious read.
Sue Giffard, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, New York City
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (May 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060012382
• ISBN-13: 978-0060012380
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (109 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,944 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 29 in The Discworld Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Equal or superior to Harry Potter!!, May 14, 2003

By	bensmomma "bensmomma" (Ann Arbor, Michigan) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Wee Free Men: A Story of Discworld (Hardcover)

If you're already a Terry Pratchett fan (I certainly am), you don't need a reviewer to tell you that you'll like this book. I'd like to address this review to the many many readers who are looking for something really GREAT for younger readers.

Tiffany, a 9-year-old witch must save the world with the assistance of a herd of drunken angry red-headed six-inch-tall kilt-wearing Scottish fairies, who bear names like "Slightly Bigger Than Wee Jock But Not So Big as Middle-Sized Jock Jock" and "Rob Anybody."

The book is hysterically, laugh-out-loud funny for both younger and adult readers (my family looked at me funny as I was giggling the whole time I was reading it.) Although a girl is the hero, the rambunctious troublemaking Feegles will make the book highly appealing for boys (of all ages) as well.

It's actually serious in intent, though, with themes reminiscent of A Wrinkle in Time or The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe series (the villain is a Queen who distorts people's consciousnesses and leaves a trail of frozen weather everywhere she goes). Tiffany saves the world through strength of character and common sense (and hooray for those!) rather than with magic alone.

As much as we liked Harry Potter around our house, I think that Wee Free Men is the equal of any of the Potter books. The best "kid" fiction of the year (or longer).

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crivens! A Very Good Book, May 14, 2003

By	James D. DeWitt "Alaska Fan" (Fairbanks, AK United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Wee Free Men: A Story of Discworld (Hardcover)

Terry Pratchett won a Carnegie Medal for his first children's book set in his Discworld, "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents." He has a good shot at a second award for "Wee Free Men." It's that good.

Nine year old Tiffany Aching was born on The Chalk. The Achings have lived on The Chalk and tended their sheep for centuries. Tiffany's grandmother was the matriarch of the Aching clan, and while she never called herself a witch, she never denied it, either. Tiffany is still trying to adjust to the death of her grandmother, and to the birth of her sticky little brother, Wentworth, when she is attacked by a monster out of Faerie. One thing leads to another, and before long she must rescue her brother from Faerie, be the kelda of the Nac Mac Feegle, the Wee Free Men of the title, and save the world from the terrors of Faerie. Because there is no one else.

One of Pratchett's many skills is inversion. In "Amazing Maurice," he inverted the Pied Piper of Hamlin. In "Wee Free Men," he inverts children's fairy tales in general. Instead of a magic sword, Tiffany has a plain old iron frying pan. Instead of a wise mentor, she has a toad who used to be a lawyer. Instead of an army, she has the Nac Mac Feegle. The Queen of Faerie, Tiffany's antagonist, is about as far from a noble Tolkien elf as you can get. Because the Queen of Faery has the power to steal your dreams, your worst nightmares, and trap you inside them.

And Tiffany must confront the Queen on her own ground, in the land of nightmares, where the monsters are terrifying and real. You don't have to reflect very long to understand Pratchett is working at several levels. The themes are meaningful and accessible to children without the slightest condescension.

Some of the characters - the Queen herself, the Nac Mac Feegle, and wonderful cameos at the end of the story - are familiar from other stories. But as was the case with "Amazing Maurice," you don't have to know the other Pratchett stories to relish "Wee Free Men." This is masterful story-telling, hysterically funny and very scary by turn. Pratchett is very, very good, and this story is one of his best. Highly recommended to both children and adults.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Terrror of Having Your Dreams Come True..., May 4, 2003

By	Carl Malmstrom (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wee Free Men: A Story of Discworld (Hardcover)

"The Wee Free Men" is Terry Pratchett's second foray into Discworld-for-Young-Adults coming a year and a half after "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents" and six months after his last 'regular' Discworld book, "Night Watch". It revisits ground from "Lords and Ladies" and "Carpe Jugulum", which is fine, because with usual Pratchett flair, he tosses in enough wry satire, strange humor and generally good storytelling that you don't always notice when he goes back to some of his older material.

While the Nac Mac Feegle (the Wee Free Men last seen in "Carpe Jugulum"), little woad-tattooed Pictsies, do feature in a large chunk of the book, the heroine is Tiffany, a nine-year-old witch's granddaughter and budding witch herself who must be the singularly most sensible (but still likeable) character I've ever read in a book directed at an audience less than 18 years old. She struggles to cope with the death of a grandmother who, even though she died more than a year ago, has still had a huge impact on her life. She also struggles with making sense of the world - both as a young girl and as a human being, and she struggles with the Queen of the Elves/Fairies (last seen in "Lords and Ladies") in what becomes a metaphor for maturity and clarity in a large, scary world. Pratchett's moral is that just because you're not yet officially an adult, it doesn't mean that you can't understand the world any less well. This is a theme he's played with before, but it's always appropriate no matter how many times he brings it out.

As a huge Discworld fan, I really enjoyed this book - possibly even more than "The Amazing Maurice...", although it's probably not at quite the same level of literary excellence as his previous work. Fans of Pratchett in general will undoubtedly appreciate his jabs at academia, fairy tales and the Harry Potter series (which future books about Tiffany may someday parody more explicitly). For fans of Discworld, not only are Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle two of his more interesting creations (which is saying something), but the cameo by Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg at the end is delightful. Missing, though, is the obligatory cameo by Death - possibly for the first time ever in a Discworld book.

Anyway, I recommend this book to anyone regardless of age or knowledge of Discworld. As with "The Amazing Maurice..." the Discworld cosmology is relatively light, so if you're not familiar with the Disc, it won't get in the way of enjoying the book. If you are, though, his subtle touches and revisitations throughout the book make it a more integrated work than his last foray into Discworld-Young-Adult. Either way, though, it's a great book.