A Hat Full of Sky

It seems I simply can't pick up a Discworld book without finishing it within three days or less.

The Tiffany books were my introduction to Discworld, and they, and the witches in general, are really still my favorites. I don't think I've ever experienced that elusive sense of being represented in fiction as strongly as when I read about Tiffany Aching mispronouncing words because she'd only ever saw them written down. More than that, I admire her (and Mistress Weatherwax). She's responsible and practical and decisive, all virtues that, in my opinion, don't get enough attention in fiction. Probably because authors don't naturally tend to be the practical sort.

I'm continually amazed by how well Pratchett writes women, even the clique-y, bizarre internal politics of tween girl friendships ring true. (If you weren't a Petulia or Anagramma, you've met them.)
Warm, insightful, incredibly funny... It's a Pratchett-book, what more do you need?

A wonderful book, with equal parts heart and humor. While the supporting cast is fantastic, Tiffany's growth is "the soul and center". She's already something pretty special, and she's still becoming!

We are history! Everything we’ve ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are.

I am not the target audience of this novel, as far as Terry Pratchett can have a target audience. My children are too young to read, and instead numerous picayune reasons combined to drive me to it:

- a series of long drives;
- a readily available audiobook;
- a dim memory that my early opinions of the earliest Discworld novels were less warm than my early memories of the later Discworld novels---and also less warm than my later memories of the earliest Discworld novels: I had read (via audiobook) The Wee Free Men before I joined Goodreads and had I been on it, I wouldn't have rated and reviewed it;
- a continued desire for more Discworld following the exhaustion of the grownup novels (reread too many times in too little time);
- a continued curiosity about what Terry Pratchett could say to young people: Discworld was there at, and I think catalyzed, my transition from foolish adolescence to foolish adulthood in my early twenties, and the mythopoeic lessons of Hogfather, The Fifth Elephant, Wyrd Sisters, and all the rest, viz., the capacity for belief to shape reality (much more important than vice versa), the tremendous difficulty of seeing what's there (any fool can see what's not there), the squalor in people's souls being the one thing that binds us all together, these all reached beyond the pages of literature-pastiching speculative fiction and made themselves part of my spirituality (Terry Pratchett as a religious figure, how very Discworld), so I was curious about his "revelations" to young adults.

I give either one or five stars to a book review depending on whether I regretted reading it or not, but if I used the more standard rating scheme, I'd probably give it a four, because the mild preachiness that was present in The Wee Free Men didn't ameliorate in this novel. It seemed to me that, while the grownup Discworld novels were content---nay reveled---in describing the raw and complete sordidness of the grownup world, Terry Pratchett via Tiffany Aching is giving hints to young folk on how they might be slightly less squalid, and I didn't appreciate this---I mean, look Terry, it's a very rare person who can read a dictionary and memorize the meanings of naked words, without the context of a story, of a thought, of a real sentence to embed it in; it's not realistic. However, this preaching evaporates in the second half of the novel, coinciding with the entrance of Granny Weatherwax who apparently can't allow Terry Pratchett to try and sneak good role models into his young adult novels. Granny Weatherwax is the most you can hope for in life: stern, curmudgeon, bullying, arrogant even in ignorance (which is vast)---and once you realize this is the best kind of person life can send your way, you start ratcheting down your expectations of life.

With Granny Weatherwax, the novel became a regular (read: pretty amazing) Discworld novel. It shares that reflectiveness and awareness that characterizes Discworld writing. (Please note, if the Senses of Humor were anthropomorphically personified on Dunmanifestin as a platoon of bickering ladies (a la Muses or Furies who personified inspiration or justice), none would claim me as one of her own. Apparently I have no sense of humor and only slightly grin at Discworld's "funniest". But I really do appreciate its intricate storytelling.)

Memorable and meaningful lines.

"It shouldn't be like this." "There isn't a way things should be. There's just what happens, and what we do." (Paraphrasing: there isn't any way it ought to be, there's just what it is.)

"Stars [toys] is easy, people is hard. ... Learning how not to do things is as hard as learning how to do them. Harder, maybe." (Paraphrasing: the trappings of a craft are easy to get; real skills are hard to get; the discipline to avoid easy wrongs is the hardest to get. I can apply this daily in my craft of software engineering.)