Sad day

Shoshie was quite a reader but she tended to read the same books over and over again. Harry Potter books were favorites but the Redwall series by Brian Jacques was also. And there were more Redwall books. And new ones came out more often.

Sadly Brian Jacques has died.

Invited in for a nice cup of tea one day, he volunteered to read to the students. Over time, he grew dissatisfied with the books available — too much adolescent angst, he later said — and vowed to write his own.

He wrote what he called “a proper story,” brimming with battle and gallantry. Titled “Redwall” and published in 1986, it became the first installment in what is now a best-selling 21-volume children’s fantasy series.

Last year a family in our local homeschool group lost everything in a house fire. The mom mentioned that one of the children lost his collection of Redwall books. Shoshie packed up her much loved, much read books, wrote a note about how she was sorry they were so tattered but knew that spoke to the value they held for her and probably to him and sent them to this boy. I hope he enjoyed them. PRM