The Death of an Author and Thoughts about Redwall

I've mentioned in recent past blog posts about my love of the Redwall books. I found out today that Brian Jacques, the author of the Redwall books, died at the age of 71 this past Saturday.

I feel a little ridiculous that this news makes me want to cry.

The Redwall series was a part of my adolescence. They were my favorite series of books, second only to the Chronicles of Narnia. I credit those 2 series to contributing to my love of reading and for teaching me many vocabulary words as a young teenage girl...resulting in my use of "big words" that frustrated my friends and amused my parents. Once I was describing to my mother a game of hide and seek I'd played with some friends...and I used the phrase "the outskirts of the thicket"...which seemed to amuse her greatly. Because what 15-year-old says words like that? (unless they're a geek and read a lot!)

It's been a few years since I've read any of the Redwall books. I haven't even read them all. I left off at one point in the late 90's. I'm not sure why. Maybe I thought I was outgrowing them. Maybe it's because I moved on to other books. Maybe it's because I would rather re-read my favorite Redwall books instead of tackling new ones. ("Martin the Warrior" and "Mossflower" were my favorites). I actually own two Redwall books that I never finished reading..."Marlfox" and "The Legend of Luke". "The Legend of Luke" was published in 1999 and I graduated high school in 2000. And any of the Redwall books that were published after 2000 I haven't read. The Lord of the Rings movies came out in 2001...and I think I moved onto tacking the books...ashamed that I hadn't read such classics BEFORE the movies came out. And Redwall kind of got forgotten.

I think I also didn't realize that more Redwall books were being published each year. And the books I started on were ones that had been written in the late 80's ("Redwall" was written in 1986) and I discovered them in the late 90's.

I think when you grow up and become an adult, you don't make time to read anymore. You can't justify sitting down and reading when you could be working on something else. And I know TV elbows books out a lot. Reading takes a lot of focus, where TV can be more mindless...and so you can do other things while watching TV. I find that I tend to read more when I'm on vacation, because there's less opportunity to watch TV.

Anyway, if you haven't read any of the Redwall books, and you enjoy things with swords and fantasy and talking animals, go to the library and pick one up! If you have kids, they're good books to read out loud.