Tag Archives: Wales

Rereading The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

Mary Grace and Deborah discuss The Book of Three (1964), the first book in Lloyd Alexander’s five-book series The Chronicles of Prydain. Loosely based on Welsh mythology, the book chronicles the adventures of Taran, assistant pig-keeper to the oracular pig Hen Wen; Eilonwy, a strong-minded princess; and an entertaining cast of travel companions.

Other books in the series:

The Black Cauldron (1965), a Newbery Honor Book

The Castle of Llyr (1966)

Taran Wanderer (1967)

The High King (1968), winner of the 1969 Newbery Medal

Other books by Lloyd Alexander:

Time Cat (1963). (Deborah discussed Time Cat on a blog post on her favorite children’s books featuring time travel.)

And Let the Credit Go (1955), Alexander’s first novel, based on his experience working in a bank

Janine is French (1960)

The Wizard in the Tree (1974)

Park Avenue Vet (1960)

Fifty Years in the Doghouse (1964)

The King’s Fountain (1971), illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats

Also mentioned on the episode:

A 2012 School Library Journal poll on the best children’s novels, with The Book of Three at #18 and The High King at #68

Sam, Banks, and Moonshine, the Caldecott Medal-winning picture book by Evaline Ness, who illustrated the covers for the original editions of the Prydain Chronicles

Trailer of the Disney movie The Black Cauldron, based on The Book of Three and The Black Cauldron

2010 Slate article on the movie The Black Cauldron

Recommended for fans of The Book of Three:

Deborah: A Wrinkle in Time (discussed on a previous episode), The Phantom Tollbooth (discussed on a previous episode)

Mary Grace: The Owl Service (discussed on a previous episode), The Dark is Rising series

Mary Grace found a fellow The Book of Three fan at The English Bookshop, a wonderful bookstore in Uppsala, Sweden.

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Books Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading The Owl Service by Alan Garner

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You can listen to this episode here.

In this episode, Mary Grace and Deborah reread Alan Garner’s Carnegie Medal-winning 1967 novel The Owl Service, which tells the story of three teenagers, Alison, Gwyn, and Roger, who find themselves reliving a Welsh legend of love and betrayal. Word to the wise: read it, but not right before bed like Mary Grace did!

The Owl Service has had many editions, and many covers, over the years. Here’s the first-edition cover.

Here’s the current edition that Mary Grace and Deborah read this time around, except it’s much cooler-looking in real life because what looks orange in the photo is actually a shiny copper color.

Here’s a cheesy horror movie-style cover:

And another one:

Here’s a 2021 Guardian profile of Garner.

Mary Grace recommends Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain series and Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series for fans of The Owl Service.

At the beginning of the book, Alison becomes obsessed with a set of dinner plates with pictures of owls or flowers, depending on how you look at them. As Mary Grace mentions, the plates in the book were inspired by a real-life set that Garner saw at someone’s house. She rashly promised to put a photo of the plates on the website, but it turns out that it’s copyrighted. You can see it at the Bodleian Libraries‘ Facebook page.

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. You can listen to it on Buzzsprout here.

You can find Debby’s author interviews on her blog, Books Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.