The Wee Free Men (Discworld, #30; Tiffany Aching, #1)

by Terry Pratchett

Her father rented it from the Baron, who owned the land, but there had been Achings farming it for hundreds of years and so, her father said (quietly, sometimes, after he’d had a beer in the evenings), as far as the land knew, it was owned by the Achings.

The whole basis of agrarian reform right there. Rousseau would be pleased.

They had these hills in their bones, he said, and they’d always been shepherds. Tiffany felt quite proud of this, in an odd way, because it might also be nice to be proud of the fact that your ancestors moved around a bit, too, or occasionally tried new things. But you’ve got to be proud of something

Fair enough.

Granny Aching had been an expert on sheep, even though she called them “just bags of bones, eyeballs, and teeth, lookin’ for new ways to die.”

I've heard that about sheep.

“I would like a question answered today,” said Tiffany. “Provided it’s not the one about how you get baby hedgehogs,” said the man. “No,” said Tiffany patiently. “It’s about zoology.” “Zoology, eh? That’s a big word, isn’t it.” “No, actually it isn’t,” said Tiffany. “Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.”

Ah, Tiff. So precocious.

“It’s unfair to leave her alone with them,” said the toad. “She won’t be alone,” said Miss Tick. “She’ll have you.” “Oh,” said the toad.

Whoops.

Onomatopoeic, she’d discovered in the dictionary, meant words that sounded like the noise of the thing they were describing, like cuckoo. But she thought there should be a word meaning a word that sounds like the noise a thing would make if that thing made a noise even though, actually, it doesn’t, but would if it did. Glint, for example. If light made a noise as it reflected off a distant window, it’d go glint! And the light of tinsel, all those little glints chiming together, would make a noise like glitterglitter. Gleam was a clean, smooth noise from a surface that intended to shine all day. And glisten was the soft, almost greasy sound of something rich and oily.

Yes, exactly!

And things were not . . . finished. Like the trees in the forest they were heading toward, for example. A tree is a tree, she thought. Close up or far away, it’s a tree. It has bark and branches and roots. And you know they’re there, even if the tree is so far away that it’s a blob. The trees here, though, were different. She had a strong feeling that they were blobs, and were growing the roots and twigs and other details as she got closer, as if they were thinking, “Quick, someone’s coming! Look real!”

This is such a cool idea.

His mouth was a big red tunnel with the wobbly thing that no one knows the name of bouncing up and down in the back of his throat.

Every time I read this I have to stop and think until I can say "uvula" to myself. I think that's a very Tiffany thing .

It was ridiculous to talk about the smell of snow. It was just pure frozen water. But Tiffany always knew, when she woke up, if it had snowed in the night. Snow had a smell like the taste of tin. Tin did have a taste, although admittedly it tasted like the smell of snow.

I have also found this .

Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them!

Excellent.