If you’re staring at the more than three dozen books in Terry Pratchett’s internationally bestselling Discworld fantasy series and wondering where to start, it probably wouldn’t occur to you to dive in with the standalone series Pratchett wrote for YA readers. But if it did, you wouldn’t be wrong. And if you wanted to do it, you could pick up Kindle ebooks of all five of the Tiffany Aching books for $3.99 total right now.
Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books — following a young girl as she grows into the role of magical protector and caretaker for her rural sheepherding community — begin in a classic Discworld mode, with only a few digs at that other well-known British book series about magical education. But as Tiffany grows up, the books and their subject matter grow up with her. Discworld books are always insightful, but as Tiffany ages, her books even begin to bite harder than their adult-aimed predecessors.
She reaches her age of majority in The Shepherd’s Crown, the final book Pratchett wrote before dying of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at age 66. That book is expressly about dealing with death — the death of a major Discworld character, and with Pratchett’s death by extension. By that point, it’s impossible to separate Tiffany’s challenges from the author’s. These are books from a great author who was well aware he was running out of time, and made a point of writing down what he found most important.
Through that journey, you can feel Pratchett’s fierce attachment to and pride in Tiffany Aching, which makes her commensurate with any of his other great Discworld protagonist-mouthpieces, like Granny Weatherwax or Sam Vimes. And they’re just as good showcases of his humor and worldbuilding as any other latter-day Discworld novel. If you have read the rest of the Discworld series, you’ll find some cameos here that might surprise you.
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