by Terry Pratchett
375 pages, 2003 Harper Collins

A precocious young girl, aided by mythical creatures, must travel to another world to get her annoying baby brother back after he is stolen by Elfen royalty. No, it’s not “Labyrinth,” but it’s equally fun and twice as funny, thanks to the zany imagination of Terry Pratchett. Nine-year-old Tiffany Aching lives on a farm in The Chalk, a small town in the countryside, where she helps with the chores and watches her candy-loving baby brother, Wentworth.

“Anything could make Wentworth sticky. Washed and dried and left in the middle of a clean floor for five minutes, Wentworth would be sticky. But it didn’t seem to come from anywhere. He just got sticky. But he was an easy child to mind, provided you stopped him from eating frogs.”

Recently, frightening monsters have been turning up around the farm, as well as little blue men hiding everywhere Tiffany goes. These are the hard-drinking, thieving little pictsies, the Nac Mac Feegle or the Wee Free Men. When Wentworth is kidnapped by the Queen of Fairies, Tiffany thinks the Wee Men know what’s going on and implores them to help her get him back.

Along the way, she learns that her beloved Granny Aching, who passed away a few years earlier, was a witch, and that Tiffany herself now has the power of First and Second sight. Armed with a skillet and a smart-alec talking toad, a gift from a witch, Tiffany and the Wee Free Men, who fear nothing but lawyers, take off for Fairie Land to get him back, even though, “The period of time it takes a pictsie to go from normal to mad fighting mood is so tiny, it can’t be measured on the smallest clock.”

Unfortunately, the pictsies are individualistic, so each one has his own cry and Tiffany can only make out a few over the din:

“They can tak’ oour lives but they canna tak’ oour trousers!”

“Ye’ll tak’ the high road an’ I’ll tak’ yer wallet!”

Together they fight their way through Drones and dreamlands, Hell dogs with razors for teeth and angry bumblebee women, to get to the queen and Wentworth, while Tiffany learns about her special gifts.

Pratchett is a genius madman, and “The Wee Free Men” is non-stop silliness. Billed as a young adult novel, it’s a delight for all ages, just like “Labyrinth.” The only thing missing is David Bowie in tights.