Castellan the Black and his Wise Draconic Tips on Food and Drink #BrainfluffCastellanthe Black #WiseDragonicTipsonFoodandDrink #PickyEaters

Don’t play with your food – you’ll look really silly if it manages to escape.

Castellan the Black, mighty dragon warrior, features in my short story Picky Eaters, written to provide a humorous escape from all the stuff that isn’t happening on Wyvern Peak… All proceeds for the duration of its publishing life are donated to mental health charities.

Review of AUDIOBOOK The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents – Book 28 of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett #BrainfluffAUDIOBOOKreview #TheAmazingMauriceandHisEducatedRodentsbookreview

I read the print version of this book longer ago than I care to recall – and then found this offering on my Audiobook library, courtesy of my grandson, so dived back in. Would I enjoy it as much?

BLURB: The Amazing Maurice runs the perfect Pied Piper scam. This streetwise alley cat knows the value of cold, hard cash and can talk his way into and out of anything. But when Maurice and his cohorts decide to con the town of Bad Blinitz, it will take more than fast talking to survive the danger that awaits…

REVIEW: Stephen Briggs does a lovely job of narrating this entertaining standalone story with only the most tenuous connections with the Discworld canon. The only hint of the wider Discworld comes into play when we are told the rats lived on the rubbish heap behind the Unseen University and ate something that made them a whole lot smarter and able to speak. And Maurice becomes a talking cat by eating one of the rats.

While it is regularly touted as a children’s story, I would suggest if your child is the imaginative, overly sensitive sort who has problems with the dark, then perhaps leave this one for another year or so. There are some scary scenes where our protagonists are trapped in tunnels and very afraid, and later in the story Pratchett describes what goes on in a rat pit in quite graphic detail. While there is also his trademark humour, it might not be enough to mitigate the horror for a child who can vividly visualise the action. However, I loved it. Pratchett’s sharp observations on how the world works from a rat’s view is both entertaining and thought-provoking in classic Pratchett style. How I still miss him!

It made for lovely listening, as Maurice, the rats and Keith are suddenly faced with wrongdoing on a different level to the scam they’ve been running. And suddenly, the rats are out of their depth as the book they have been using for advice and guidance on how to negotiate the wider world – Mr Bunnsie Has an Adventure – isn’t up to the job. I would have loved to have used this book as a set text for a Year 5 class, as I think it raises all sorts of philosophical questions which that age group are ready to get their teeth into. Highly recommended for children of all ages who enjoy quirky fantasy tales about human behaviour seen through the lens of rodents and cats.
9/10