Play Book Tag discussion

Taran lives at Caer Dalben where he is mainly responsible for caring for the oraccular pig Hen Wen. When Hen Wen runs away Taran chases her into the forest. he ends up running into a crown prince, Gwydion, who tells him the Horned king in planning to attack his home. They are soon captured by an evil enchantress. Along the way a wanna be bard, a princess, a dwarf and Gurgi (a half human creature) join Taran's quest to find the pig and stop the Horned King.

I only started this series because the fifth book won the Newbery award and I figured it wouldn't make sense without reading the prior books in the series. Gurgi and Eilonwy, the princess, were really annoying at times. The pacing is also off. There's a lot of travels but when it come time for the big final battle Taran's unconcious for most of it and we just get a boring recap later on.

I somehow missed this series as a kid, although it would have been in my middle grade reading range when it was published. It was being used with the 'gifted' sixth graders I had when I was a student teacher. I think I was more charmed with it than the 12 year olds were. I tried to interest my daughter in the series when she was in grade school, but the books couldn't compete with Redwall and Harry Potter.