RIP Brian Jacques

[Krug]

BBC News - Redwall author Brian Jacques dies aged 71

A former merchant sailor whose children's books sold millions worldwide has died aged 71.

Brian Jacques' Redwall series of books were translated into 29 languages and sold 20m globally.

He first wrote the series, set in an abbey populated by animals, for children at the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind in Liverpool.

The Liverpool-born writer's weekly show, Jakestown, ran on BBC Radio Merseyside for more than 20 years.

He died after a heart attack at the weekend and leaves a wife and two grown up sons.

A sad loss. I enjoyed the Redwall books I've read.

 

[Merkuri]

Aww, I loved the Redwall books. RIP Mr. Jacques.

I feel like calling them children's books is a bit inaccurate, considering how gory they could be. Those definitely fell in the "young adult" category.

 

[nedjer]

He was stellar - 20 million 'kids'' fantasy books is a lot of entertainment and enjoyment.

 

[CuRoi]

I was about to start a thread on this amazing and interesting author. Honestly, I have yet to read one of his books. My 10 year old son however has read nearly the entire series, mostly in the past year. Once I have time, I keep promising to pick up the series and give it a good read, because the stories sound like great fantasy and great fun from my son's description (and not just "children's" books.)

Thanks to Mr. Brian Jacques engaging books, my son placed first in his 4th grade reading counts program for the school (he read the most books in his grade for the year...the majority of them being from the Redwall series but also Tolkien, Lewis and more.) Any person that can help nurture a love of literature in a child has my vote for sainthood.

My condolences to the family, fans and it's a very a sad day for literature indeed.