A Hat Full of Sky: The Second Tiffany Aching Adventure (Discworld Series #32)

by Terry Pratchett Narrated by Indira Varma, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy, Steven Cree

Overview

Winner of the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adolescent Literature * Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book Winner * ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults * ALA Notable Children's Book

The second in beloved and bestselling fantasy grandmaster Sir Terry Pratchett's beloved Discworld novels starring the young witch Tiffany Aching.

Tiffany Aching is ready to begin her apprenticeship in magic. She expects spells and magic-not chores and ill-tempered nanny goats! Surely there must be more to witchcraft than this.

What Tiffany doesn't know is that an insidious, disembodied creature is pursuing her. This time, neither Mistress Weatherwax (the greatest witch in the world) nor the fierce, six-inch-high Wee Free Men can protect her. In the end, it will take all of Tiffany's inner strength to save herself . . . if it can be done at all.

""A Hat Full of Sky continues Terry Pratchett's brilliant look into the world of a young witch: this time, with more angst."" (Fantasy Book Review)

The five funny and fabulous Tiffany Aching adventures are:

• The Wee Free Men
• A Hat Full of Sky
• Wintersmith
• I Shall Wear Midnight
• The Shepherd's Crown

Tiffany's mentors, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, star in the novels Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, and Carpe Jugulum.

And don't miss Terry Pratchett's hilarious and wise Discworld novel The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents!

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

Tiffany Aching and her loyal friends, the crazed six-inch Nac Mac Feegle, return in an outing rather less uproarious but more weighty, and thereby possibly more satisfying, than The Wee Free Men (2003). Tiffany, now 11, has left the Chalk to apprentice to a career witch. On the brink of adolescence, she has become more conscious of image, and it is this weakness that leaves her open to attack by a hiver, a parasite that seeks out the powerful, taking over their minds-and killing them in the process. It's the Feegles to the rescue, a highly dubious enterprise. Pratchett weaves a tale that isn't afraid to detour into biting satire or to stop and admire a mot particularly juste, but that keeps returning to the critical question of identity-how an individual must embrace her worst aspects to become her best self, how worth is found in works, not in posturing. The great chalk horse cut into the downlands becomes the metaphor for Tiffany's understanding of this: "Taint what a horse looks like. It's what a horse be." By turns hilarious and achingly beautiful, this be just right. (Fiction. 12+)

From the Publisher

A masterpiece of comic fantasy. [Pratchett’s] deep feeling for landscape, animals, kindness, and courage make his adventures deeply satisfying as well as clever.” — London Times

“Wonderful language, genuinely scary explorations and a young girl whose growing up is believable and exciting.” — Chicago Tribune

“The humor races from cerebral to burlesque without dropping a stitch. Astonishing.” — Horn Book (starred review)

“Tiffany is Hermione Granger, Gaiman’s Coraline, and Pullman’s Lyra Belacqua rolled into one. A great adventure with plenty of magic and laughs.” — Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) (starred review)

“By turns hilarious and achingly beautiful, this be just right.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Readers will curl up to read with a sigh of contentment.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

“Full of irreverent humor, laugh-out-loud dialogue, and many memorable characters. Fans of the previous book are in for another treat.” — School Library Journal

Horn Book (starred review)

The humor races from cerebral to burlesque without dropping a stitch. Astonishing.

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) (starred review)

Tiffany is Hermione Granger, Gaiman’s Coraline, and Pullman’s Lyra Belacqua rolled into one. A great adventure with plenty of magic and laughs.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Readers will curl up to read with a sigh of contentment.

London Times

A masterpiece of comic fantasy. [Pratchett’s] deep feeling for landscape, animals, kindness, and courage make his adventures deeply satisfying as well as clever.

Chicago Tribune

Wonderful language, genuinely scary explorations and a young girl whose growing up is believable and exciting.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Readers will curl up to read with a sigh of contentment.

Chicago Tribune

Wonderful language, genuinely scary explorations and a young girl whose growing up is believable and exciting.

London Times

A masterpiece of comic fantasy. [Pratchett’s] deep feeling for landscape, animals, kindness, and courage make his adventures deeply satisfying as well as clever.

The Bulletin for the Center for Children's Books

Readers will curl up to read with a sigh of contentment.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159930309
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/05/2023
Series:	Discworld Series
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

A Hat Full of Sky

Chapter One

Leaving

It came crackling over the hills, like an invisible fog. Movement without a body tired it, and it drifted very slowly. It wasn't thinking now. It had been months since it had last thought, because the brain that was doing the thinking for it had died. They always died. So now it was naked again, and frightened.

It could hide in one of the blobby white creatures that baa'd nervously as it crawled over the turf. But they had useless brains, capable of thinking only about grass and making other things that went baa. No. They would not do. It needed, needed something better, a strong mind, a mind with power, a mind that could keep it safe.

It searched. . . .

The new boots were all wrong. They were stiff and shiny. Shiny boots! That was disgraceful. Clean boots, that was different. There was nothing wrong with putting a bit of a polish on boots to keep the wet out. But boots had to work for a living. They shouldn't shine.

Tiffany Aching, standing on the rug in her bedroom, shook her head. She'd have to scuff the things as soon as possible.

Then there was the new straw hat, with a ribbon on it. She had some doubts about that, too.

She tried to look at herself in the mirror, which wasn't easy because the mirror was not much bigger than her hand, and cracked and blotchy. She had to move it around to try and see as much of herself as possible and remember how the bits fitted together.

But today . . . well, she didn't usually do this sort of thing in the house, but it was important to look smart today, and since no one was around . . .

She put the mirror down on the rickety table by the bed, stood in the middle of the threadbare rug, shut her eyes, and said: "See me."

And away on the hills something, a thing with no body and no mind but a terrible hunger and a bottomless fear, felt the power.

It would have sniffed the air if it had a nose.

It searched.

It found.

Such a strange mind, like a lot of minds inside one another, getting smaller and smaller! So strong! So close!

It changed direction slightly and went a little faster. As it moved, it made a noise like a swarm of flies.

The sheep, nervous for a moment about something they couldn't see or smell, baa'd . . .

. . . and went back to chewing grass.

Tiffany opened her eyes. There she was, a few feet away from herself. She could see the back of her own head.

Carefully, she moved around the room, not looking down at the "her" that was moving, because she found that if she did that, then the trick was over. It was quite difficult, moving like that, but at last she was in front of herself and looking herself up and down.

Brown hair to match brown eyes . . . well, there was nothing she could do about that. At least her hair was clean and she'd washed her face.

She had a new dress on, which improved things a bit. It was so unusual to buy new clothes in the Aching family that, of course, it was bought big so that she'd "grow into it." But at least it was pale green, and it didn't actually touch the floor. With the shiny new boots and the straw hat she looked . . . like a farmer's daughter, quite respectable, going off to her first job. It'd have to do.

From here she could see the pointy hat on her head, but she had to look hard for it. It was like a glint in the air, gone as soon as you saw it. That's why she'd been worried about the new straw hat, but it had simply gone through the pointy hat as if it wasn't there.

This was because, in a way, it wasn't. It was invisible, except in the rain. Sun and wind went straight through, but rain and snow somehow saw it, and treated it as if it was real.

She'd been given it by the greatest witch in the world, a real witch with a black dress and a black hat and eyes that could go through you like turpentine goes through a sick sheep. It had been a kind of reward. Tiffany had done magic, serious magic. Before she had done it she hadn't known that she could, when she had been doing it she hadn't known that she was, and after she had done it she hadn't known how she had. Now she had to learn how.

"See me not," she said. The vision of her -- or whatever it was, because she was not exactly sure about this trick -- vanished.

It had been a shock, the first time she'd done this. But she'd always found it easy to see herself, at least in her head. All her memories were like little pictures of herself doing things or watching things, rather than the view from the two holes in the front of her head. There was a part of her that was always watching her.

Miss Tick -- another witch, but one who was easier to talk to than the witch who'd given Tiffany the hat -- had said that a witch had to know how to "stand apart," and that she'd find out more when her talent grew, so Tiffany supposed the "see me" was part of this.

Sometimes Tiffany thought she ought to talk to Miss Tick about "see me." It felt as if she was stepping out of her body but still had a sort of ghost body that could walk around. It all worked as long as her ghost eyes didn't look down and see that she was just a ghost body. If that happened, some part of her panicked and she found herself back in her solid body immediately. Tiffany had, in the end, decided to keep this to herself. You didn't have to tell a teacher everything. Anyway, it was a good trick for when you didn't have a mirror.

A Hat Full of Sky. Copyright © by Terry Pratchett. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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