I enjoyed rereading this childhood favorite featuring the characters Taran, Eilonwy and Fflewddur Fflam. I especially liked how Taran learned that being a hero takes more than swinging a sword and looking handsome. I look forward to rereading the next book in the series, The Black Cauldron.

This may have been the first fantasy book I ever read, back in grade school. I recently re-read it out of nostalgic curiosity. It’s so interesting to observe a book from the parallax provided by 25 years! I remembered it with more color and vitality — but also with less nuance, and with almost no sense of the overall story or geography. I’d still recommend it to young kids as a fun excursion, even though Taran doesn’t even make it up to one-dimensional as a character. (In contrast, Eilonwy was far more interesting than I had remembered her. She gets all the good lines!)