A Hat Full of Sky

June 1, 2004
Terry Pratchett follows up his The Wee Free Men (which PW called "an enthralling and rewarding read" in a starred review) with A Hat Full of Sky, starring the young witch Tiffany Aching. Tiffany leaves home and the little blue Nac Mac Feegle to apprentice for Miss Level. Meanwhile, Tiffany, some powerful witches and the little blue fairies must defeat the hiver that stalks her.

July 1, 2004
In this sequel to "The Wee Free Men", Pratchett approaches an even more perfect union of domestic and epic fantasy; the humor races from cerebral to burlesque without dropping a stitch. Tiffany Aching's pursuit by a soul-stealing hiver requires all the boisterous force of the Nac Mac Feegle, as well as all the power of Granny Aching's sheep-dappled landscape to bring Tiffany back to herself.

(Copyright 2004 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from July 1, 2004
In this sequel to The Wee Free Men (rev. 5/03), Pratchett approaches an even more perfect union of domestic and epic fantasy, and the humor similarly races from cerebral to burlesque without dropping a stitch. Gratefully relinquishing her temporary appointment as kelda to the Nac Mac Feegle, Tiffany Aching is apprenticed to Miss Level, a witch of the humbler sort whose singular characteristic is her identity as one person distributed between two bodies: "My right body is slightly clumsier than my left body, but I have better eyesight in my right pair of eyes. I'm human, just like you, except that there's more of me." Tiffany's witch lessons with Miss Level, and her encounters with a neighboring teen-queen apprentice, have the kind of magic school humor beloved to fans of Harry P., but they also brilliantly lighten the more serious story of Tiffany's relentless pursuit by a soul-stealing hiver. "We see you. Now we are you," says the hiver as it takes Tiffany over; and all the boisterous force of the Nac Mac Feegle, as well as all the power of Granny Aching's sheep-dappled landscape, the Chalk, will be needed to bring Tiffany back to herself. Pratchett recalls his elders Garner and Mayne in his evocation--and invocation--of the English Chalk, and Tiffany as its personification. "She tells the hills what they are, every day. She has them in her bones. She holds 'em in her heart," says Feegle Rob Anybody, and it's more than poetry, it's the life of this astonishing novel.

(Copyright 2004 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2004
Gr 5-8-This fantasy continues the story begun in The Wee Free Men (HarperCollins, 2003), in which Tiffany Aching, then age nine, defeated the evil Queen of the Fairies. Now 11, she is beginning her apprenticeship as a witch, as her grandmother was before her. The Wee Free Men have vowed to protect her always. Tiffany's power is untrained and she has accidentally learned how to project herself out of her body or "borrow" herself. This allows a type of demon, a hiver, to take over her mind and destroy it little by little. While she is under its influence, she isn't herself and treats others badly, especially the clique of apprentice witches who have made fun of her. When the Wee Free Men are able to free her, Tiffany banishes the hiver into the next world where Death awaits. With the help of her teacher, who is actually a person with two bodies; wise head witch Granny Weatherwax; an obsessively tidy ghost named Oswald; Toad, a former human lawyer; and Rob Anybody, husband of the current Queen of the Wee Free Men, she learns to find her own magic. This book is full of irreverent humor, laugh-out-loud dialogue, and many memorable characters. A glossary is provided to help decipher the Wee Free Men's Scottish brogue. Fans of the previous book are in for another treat.-Sharon Rawlins, Piscataway Public Library, NJ

Copyright 2004 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2004
Gr. 6-10. Incipient witch Tiffany Aching, who confronted danger in " The Wee Free Men" (2003), faces even greater peril in this equally quirky sequel. She is taken on as an apprentice witch by Miss Level, who is one person with two bodies--an oddity to say the least. Also, Tiffany is stalked and taken over by a hiver, an invisible, brainless entity that commands and distorts the mind of its host, which eventually dies. Luckily Tiffany is strong enough to hide a section of her mind within herself, but she is otherwise completely under the control of the hiver. It's the cantankerous Wee Free Men (or the Nac Mac Feegle) to the rescue, with the help of Miss Level and the wisest, most respected witch of all. The chase is part slapstick, part terror, and in the end, Tiffany herself sets things straight. Pratchett maintains the momentum of the first book, and fans will relish the further adventures of the "big wee hag," as Tiffany is known to the Feegles.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)