Gr 7 Up-This is the final adventure of the young witch, Tiffany Aching, and her obnoxious, fawning, and yet lovable small blue companions, the Nac Mac Feegles. In many ways it's a coming-of-age novel, as Tiffany is now on her own. Known as "The Hag O'the Hills," she spends her time tending to the messy, menial, everyday things that no one else will take care of, such as fixing bones or easing the pain of a dying man. But as she tries to serve the people of the Chalk hills, she senses a growing distrust of her, and a loss of respect for witches in general. Along with the Nac Mac Feegles, she has to seek out the source of this growing fear. Tiffany discovers she may have been responsible for waking an evil force when she kissed the winter in Wintersmith (HarperTempest, 2006). The Cunning Man is in need of a host body and is searching for Tiffany. Pratchett combines gut-busting humor and amusing footnotes with a genuine poignancy as Tiffany tries to decide what her future should be. Fans of the author's "Discworld" (HarperCollins) books will enjoy the connections with the larger series, particularly the inclusion of Granny Weatherwax. Simply put, this fourth and final book in the series is an undisputed triumph.— Tim Wadham, St. Louis County Library, MO

Pratchett returns to the terra firma of his popular, sprawling Discworld series, the young-reader corner of which centers around teen witch Tiffany Aching. Being a good witch mostly means tending to the locals' minor aches, pains, and kerfuffles ich she does with as much aplomb as anyone could be expected to muster t to become a great witch, she'll have to contend with the malevolent ghost of an ancient witch-burner. Yet even that might not be as terrifying as trying to keep the peace between the humans and the wee Nac Mac Feegles (whose primary skills are drinking, brawling, having Scottish brogues, brawling a bit more, and stealing every scene they're in) and, shudder, getting wrapped up in the wedding of her childhood friend, who is suddenly a very myopic baron. The action never picks up much more momentum than a determined amble, but readers won't care a whit because in terms of pure humor per square word, Pratchett may be the cheeriest writer around. Now that Tiffany Aching's adventures are concluded, readers can explore the nearly three decade's worth of other Discworld books.

Pratchett's characteristic mix of intelligence, comic inventiveness, humor, and incisive moral seriousness suffuses this fourth Tiffany Aching adventure. Tiffany must conquer the "cunning man," a "horrible creature who can take over somebody else completely"--especially someone open to evil. The story, stuffed with concepts that challenge and oxygenate the brain, is funny, thought-provoking, and completely engaging from first to last.

Ask Tiffany Aching, and she'll tell you: It's not easy being a witch, especially when you're only almost 16 years old. It can't be easy being Terry Pratchett, either, an author known foremost, perhaps, for his screamingly funny Discworld novels, of which this is the latest. Beneath everything he writes, however, even as he has readers howling helplessly with laughter, is a fierce, palpable love for his fellow human beings, however flawed they may be. A love that causes Tiffany over and over to square her shoulders beneath her pointy black hat and do what's needful. He throws a lot at Tiffany, who crashed spectacularly into her calling when she armed herself with a skillet and, at the age of nine, ventured into Faerieland (which is not nearly as nice as it sounds) to steal her brother back from its Queen ( The Wee Free Men , 2003). Here he challenges her with the Cunning Man, a centuries-old disembodied hatred that seeks ignorance and uses it—"Poison goes where poison's welcome"—against witches. Themes of memory and forgetting run throughout this tale. Books preserve all memories, even the ones better consigned to oblivion. The Cunning Man is resurrected when Letitia, Tiffany's erstwhile swain Roland's fiancee (Pratchett confronts her with this betrayal, too) summons him inadvertently when trying to work a spell against Tiffany. But one of the Cunning Man's MOs is wanton book burning, a calculated obliteration of memories. Witches, arguably, embody the accumulated wisdom of their craft, while the Cunning Man is a collective memory of evil. He operates by playing on fear and causing the common folk to forget what their witches have done for them. Tiffany must remember everything she's gleaned from all the witches who have trained her to defeat him, and the key is a childhood memory the old Baron shares with her on his deathbed. It's not all heavy stuff. Pratchett leavens Tiffany's passage into adulthood with generous portions of assistance from the Nac Mac Feegle, the six-inch-high blue men whose love of boozin', fightin' and stealin' is subordinate only to their devotion to Tiffany, their Hag o' the Hills. When they utterly destroy the King's Head while on an errand for Tiffany, they rebuild the pub—back-to-front, rendering it the King's...oh, crivens, never mind. And even as he demands more and more of Tiffany—her beau engaged elsewhere, her old Baron gone, the people of the Chalk turned against her—he gives her an army of friends and someone who loves words as much as she does, someone who, like Tiffany and, one suspects, the author himself, knows that "forgiveness" sounds "like a silk handkerchief gently falling down." A passionately wise, spectacularly hilarious and surpassingly humane outing from a master.

At eight years old, she whacked the Queen of Faerie with a frying pan and saved a future Baron. At eleven, she defeated the mind-destroying Hiver. At thirteen, she had to fend off the advances of the Wintersmith (an eldritch god-sort-of-spirity thing) and save the world (again). Now at very nearly sixteen, Tiffany Aching is considered the witch of the Chalk region, and she has the no-time-for-sleep schedule to prove it. But that’s what being a witch IS: taking care of the people in your steading, all the rest is press-on warts and cackle-boxes. Tiffany is confused when those people start turning on her, and rumors, innuendo, and lies are accepted as truth. The Cunning Man, what’s left of the evil spirit of an ancient witchfinder, has been awakened; and he’s coming for Tiffany. As if that were not problem enough, the old Baron is dying and the baron-to-be (who all assumed would marry Tiffany) has a soppy fiancée…and a monstrous mother-in-law-to-be. Though the Nac Mac Feegles (Tiffany’s small, blue, brogue-spewing protectors) mean to be helpful, they often just add to the chaos (often through bloodletting). Pratchett rounds off the Tiffany Aching adventures with what is likely the final volume (she is an adult now); though fans may be sad at that, there’s nary a one who will be disappointed with this thrilling, humorous, moving and most wise tale that examines religious intolerance, memory, and loss without ever straying from Pratchett’s trademark witty wordplay.—Timothy Capehart.