HSU IT Department

Continuing my temporary regression to childhood, I reread all five Chronicles of Prydain over the last couple of days. When I was a kid I wanted to be either Gwydion (main hero) or Achren (evil enchantress); she's at her best in the third one but comes to a bad end, as Evil Enchantresses all too often do. (There's something suspicious about that, since in real life villains often flourish like the green bay tree...) But my favorite has always been the fourth one, where Taran tries to figure out who he is. He's such an adolescent goof in the first one but by the end he's definitely the most interesting, and probably the most complex, character in the whole cast. There are some great life lessons buried in these books (OK, reading them now, I have to say they're not exactly buried, it's more like they whack you over the head -- but they're still good, and at age 7 or 8 or whenever kids usually read these, how subtle can you really be??). Best thing is that the characters grow up as you read them, like the Harry Potter books, and I always go all sniffly at the end of the last one when Orddu, Orwen and Orgoch visit Taran and he has to choose whether to stay or go. *snif*

Shame the movie version of the second one stunk. Never mess with perfection, the seams always show.

Having wallowed sufficiently in the Days of my Youth (oh, except for this one, which I FINALLY again know the title of thanks to AbeBooks' BookSleuth forum and will devour as soon as my copy arrives, hurrah!!), I've started on The Librarian Spies, which promises to be professionally interesting, since I might want to be one someday. Hey, if Julia Child can be a spy, why not a humble librarian??