SOURCE: Baldry, Cherith. “The Children's Books.” In Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature, edited by Andrew M. Butler, Edward James, and Farah Mendlesohn, pp. 20-34. Reading, England: The Science Fiction Foundation, 2000.

In the following essay, Baldry examines Pratchett's use of his children's fiction to “expand the thinking of his young readers by presenting them with new ideas.”

Terry Pratchett's children's books amply fulfil the criteria that any child looks for in enjoyable fiction: they are exciting and they are funny. But it will be obvious to most children and all adult readers that they are more than just that. As well as telling an enjoyable story, Pratchett is attempting to expand the thinking of his young readers by presenting them with new ideas or unconventional ways of looking at familiar ideas. So it will be appropriate to examine Pratchett's children's fiction in terms of what he is trying to...