The Gawgon and the Boy by Lloyd Alexander

The Wizard in the Tree is blatantly about politics and money, and the governing class doesn’t come off well in either The Town Cats and Other Tales or The Cat Who Wished to Be a Man.(“I should add that she always wins!” Alexander once crowed about Gypsy Rizka. “And those idiot town dignitaries always lose, which is exactly the way it ought to be.”) It deserves to be better known.Īlthough it’d be offensive (and futile, and boring) to suss out Alexander’s politics, I’m amused by the extent to which bureaucrats and politicians irk him, not only in the Westmark books, where “statesman” is a dirty word, but also in The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian, where a tyrannical government dehumanizes its subjects. The Westmark series- Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen-is Alexander’s masterpiece, a moving and mature story about the morality of violence and the profound cost of revolution and war. I’m not sure many young-adult writers would have either the self-restraint or the philosophical forbearance to pull that off. In book after book for children, Lloyd Alexander manages to plumb serious moral and ethical issues without mentioning religion or sex.

The Vesper Holly Adventures: The Xanadu Adventure (2005) The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen (1991) The Vesper Holly Adventures: The Philadelphia Adventure (1990) The Vesper Holly Adventures: The Jedera Adventure (1989)

The Vesper Holly Adventures: The Drackenberg Adventure (1988) The Vesper Holly Adventures: The El Dorado Adventure (1987)

The Vesper Holly Adventures: The Illyrian Adventure (1986) The Westmark Trilogy: The Beggar Queen (1984) The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha (1978) The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian (1970) The Foundling and Other Tales from Prydain (1970) The Chronicles of Prydain: The High King (1968) The Chronicles of Prydain: Taran Wanderer (1967) The Chronicles of Prydain: The Castle of Llyr (1966) The Chronicles of Prydain: The Black Cauldron (1965) The Chronicles of Prydain: The Book of Three (1964) I’m genuinely sorry to bid adieu to Lloyd Alexander, but I hope these posts will serve as a starting point for adults who want to reacquaint themselves with an old friend-or find a new novel to read with their kids. In May 2008, one year after the death of Lloyd Alexander, I read his autobiographical novel The Gawgon and the Boy and wondered, “How many non-Prydain books did my favorite childhood author write?” To my amazement, I found 30 books (not counting picture books and translations from French) and set about writing short blog reviews of all of them.įour years later, this blog series is complete.

The Gawgon and the Boy by Lloyd Alexander