In the second Discworld novel about Tiffany Aching, the now 11-year-old witch leaves home to apprentice to an eccentric witch named Miss Level. Apart from being frustrated with having to do more chores than learning spells, Tiffany has to deal with an entity known as a hiver. The hiver occupies peoples' minds and causes trouble up to and including death.

Meanwhile, the Wee Free Men under the leadership of Rob Anybody go on a quest to aid Tiffany. Eventually the conflict with the hiver leads Tiffany to have to go on a journey of her own, accompanied by the powerful witch Granny Weatherwax. What I love about this book is that when Tiffany finally confronts the hiver, she does so with compassion. Even Granny Weatherwax is impressed.

It's another funny and imaginative work from the pen of Pratchett ( )

I sort of struggled with the first Tiffany Aching book, but I blame that on the fairies. I don't know what it is about fairies, but they kill my interest in anything stone dead. Therefore, I was open to enjoying the later ones more—and thankfully I did.

A Hat Full of Sky sees Tiffany begin her education as a witch, taken on as an apprentice and leaving home for the first time. It begins to delve into what it actually means to do witchcraft, as Tiffany comes into conflict with other apprentice witches who are more into it for the glamour than for helping other people. There's a lot of good comedy with the Feegles, the little blue men who in this one travel across country to warn Tiffany about impending danger by working as a group to operate a suit of clothes. Good jokes, good themes; I did feel (as I often do with Pratchett) that the end was a bit of a fizzle, in this case a bit drawn out, but otherwise this has a lot to recommend it.

I think what distinguishes the later Tiffany books from The Wee Free Men is that Pratchett figured out what he wanted to say through Tiffany by the time he wrote Hat Full of Sky, about what it means to be a witch: to do the hard work that needs doing because it helps others, and for no other reason.

http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2006-10.html#hat ( )

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