The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I can’t recall exactly the first time I read The Book of Three, but what a fortuitous day that was. It was a school library, I think, me just wandering the shelves. The title was intriguing. And the book was so good, it instilled in me a joy for browsing books and picking up random ones. I won’t say its better or worse than anything else, but I was too young for Tolkien back then, and Harry Potter was still 20 years away.
I’ve been binge reading, lately, interspersing more random library finds with stuff from my past. I thought I’d give The Chronicles of Prydain another go. Rereading it brought back no memories, because I was too immersed, back then, to have noticed anything else. Taran’s swashbuckling adventures are fun, exciting, with lessons to be learned.
Sure, it’s a bit thin in places, but then, it’s a kid’s book. This is important: kids don’t need to justify things with a lot of exposition and explanation., Just get on with it. And I think that’s why adults read young adult fiction now and again. Not because want to be kids again; we just want to get on with it. Swing a sword, fight evil, resist triumph without a lot of pseudo-philosophical moralizing.
A fun, quick read. First in a series of five.