1. REDWALL ABBEY By Brian Jacques Miles Mercer

2. BRIAN JACQUES  Born in Liverpool, England on June 15 th, 1939.  At the age of ten he was given a class project to write a short story about animals. He wrote on about a bird cleaning a crocodiles teeth and the teacher could not believe what she read was done by a ten year old. He was pronounced as a liar.  After school he worked as a seamen, then later becoming a playwright.

3. OVERVIEW  How the series took off.  Why I choose a book set for a younger demographic.  The themes: Death Rising to the challenge Good vs Evil

4. STYLE  Jacques writes in a very descriptive style, he tried to paint the pictures as vivid as possible so the children could see the scene in their imagination.  All characters are animals, but these animals are very humanized.  Medieval style. The keeps and feasts as well as the ancient weaponry.

5. WHY I CHOOSE JACQUES  When I was young I stumbled upon the book series RedWall.  Instantly I fell in love with the series spending all day reading.  This led to my first writing (100pg) about the same characters Jacques wrote about, and my newfound love for writing.  I was 12 at the time, but the books have stuck with me.

6. HOW IT GOT BIG  Jacques was not a famous writer when he first wrote RedWall.  He was a milkman that wrote it for school children.  His old english teacher read it, then showed it to a publisher without telling Jacques. The book became huge.  Another five books followed the first one.

7. THE THEMES: DEATH  Jacques focuses a lot on death, not skipping over it despite it being a children’s book.  The battles are descriptive as well as the death scenes.  When Matthias recovers the great sword of Martin from the evil snake Asmodeus, Squire Julian warns him not to consider it magical, but to see it has only one function: causing death.  This theme echoes throughout the entire series.

8. RISING TO THE CHALLENGE  Jacques stories usually included an unlikely hero, an underdog.  This style of writing relates most to the children, giving them someone to root for.  The champion Mathias was a smaller sized mouse, but went on the quest nonetheless to help RedWall.

9. GOOD VS EVIL  In every book of the series there is a conflict between the forces of good and the forces of evil.  Some of Jacques’ characters cross the line in between, but mostly it is a fight between the two sides  Ex: Deyna is a good creature brought up among evil, and returns to being good.  Ex: Veil Sixclaw is the exact opposite.

10. CARNIVORES = EVIL  The evil snake Asmodeus is considered to a usual carnivore, but Jacques depicts his character very strongly.  The constant hissing of his own name and the evil pale eyes builds the snake up as the books main villain.  Asmodeus does not kill to survive, he loves when smaller animal cross over his path.  This is another aspect of good vs evil, where evil must be destroyed.

11. CONCLUSION  Reading these series in my childhood lead me to want to pursue writing and create a beautiful written world like Jacques.  He was a wonderful writer, and like his characters, an unlikely one due to his humble job as a milkman.  Jacques lived his life to please children, and was a patron of his school until he finally passed away on Feb. 5 2011.

12. QUESTIONS?