Brian the Warrior

I just wrote out this whole, moving blog post about how much the Redwall series means to kids, with protagonists that work together, advocate for the defenseless, and take control of their own situations even though they are small in stature. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that while I do believe all of that and see that as the genius of Brian Jacques with his series, I can't ignore the 3rd grader in me who started reading those books.

Laurie Banks, a problematic 3rd grader, seemed to only really be good at reading. Math, not her strong suit. Cursive, not her strong suit. Art, not her strong suit. She read books out of the bin marked "11" on the shelves and was the only one to do that, and she was proud. Real proud. She had temper tantrums, got sent to the principal's office, and cried a lot at school. She didn't think about much when she read Redwall except that it was exciting and they were cute animals that had cool, dangerous weapons that did good things for their friends or even strangers that needed help. There were riddles throughout the book that intrigued and challenged and added to the flair of the story. Above all, it was series. A long series. This world never had to end. The good guys always won and it was nice to be in a place where it was easy to tell who was supposed to get the crayons thrown at them and who was supposed to be on your soccer team at recess. It was fun, and continued to be fun through high school, so she kept reading all of the books that Brian Jacques wrote.

I hope kids keep reading these books. I hope parents bridge the word of mouth gaps and keep Redwall Abbey around for their kids. These are wonderful stories and not that I've ever met the man, but there isn't a kindlier looking jacket cover than the one with Brain Jacques smiling up at you. I could get deeper and (like I did in the first paragraph) really identify why kids relate to these texts so much, but let's not over think this. The Redwall series is fun, so let's keep reading fun. I hope authors and publishers and readers alike keep this mantra in mind. Reading should be fun.

Thanks, Mr. Jacques or as I will affectionately refer to you from here on out, Brian the Warrior. Thanks for making reading so fun.