R.I.P. Brian Jacques
By Sean O'Neal February 8, 2011
English author Brian Jacques, whose bestselling Redwall series provided a gateway into worlds of fantasy and myth for many a child throughout the years, died over the weekend of a heart attack. He was 71.
Over the course of 21 officialRedwall novels (a 22nd is due in May) and many ancillary collections filled with maps and trivia, Jacques unfolded an epic tale of heroism told in especially vivid language-owing to their origin as stories for children at the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind, where Jacques had spent time as a milk deliveryman-that captured the imagination of even the very young, many of whom became lifelong devotees.
I stopped reading them a while ago, but damn, for a while there I read nothing but the Redwall series. Martin the Warrior made me cry every single time, huge, heaving sobs for a talking mouse and what happened to the critters he loved. And The Bellmaker's Daughter? That chick KICKED ASS with her knotted bit of sea rope. My dad used to read them to us as chapter books, attempting (and failing badly at accomplishing) the accents. All the moles and their "zoop," all the rabbits and their "Wot wot?"s.
Mr. Jacques, I hope you had a marvelously full life, knowing you brought so much happiness to so many children around the world.
P.S. There is another really sweet article here in the NY Times, if you'd like to read more.