The Book of Three 3/5An ill-mannered farm boy named Taran dreams of being a hero, but he knows he's not cut out for that sort of life. He can barely manage to properly supervise his oracle pig Hen Wen. When his pig goes missing amidst the scene of a great battle, Taran just might have to become a hero whether he's cut out for it or not. Meeting unlikely companions along the way including the heroic Prince Gwydion and the sassy Princess Eilonwy, Taran finds himself wrapped up in a battle against

Lloyd Alexander's "Chronicles of Prydain" have become a classic staple of fantasy literature, a few rungs below "Lord of the Rings" and a few inches down from "Chronicles of Narnia." In this volume, all six books in his series are brought together, showing all of Prydain's beauty, richness, humor and sorrow as one big book. "The Book of Three" opens with Assistant Pig-Keeper Taran yearning for adventure -- and getting more than he bargains for when he chases the pig into the woods, and is nearly...

Terran reread these for his book club, and I had fond memories of reading them as a child, so I picked them up too.The first three books were charming. I loved the combination of high epic characters and characters designed to mock high epic. The fair folk were particularly entertaining when compared to Tolkien-style epic. You could write a book on Eilonwyn's role as an adventure heroine. She's enormously complex and layered in a collection of characters that aspires to two dimensions.As the ser...

One of the great fantasy series ever. Notice I didn't say "for children". This series is for everyone, with unforgettable characters (including faithful Gurgi!). What really makes this series is Taran's journey from a hot-headed, stubborn youth to a man fit to be king of Prydain. The most moving scenes of the series are in "Taran Wanderer", when Taran learns that to be a hero with a sword in your hand is no more worthy than to be a blacksmith, weaver or potter. The scenes when Taran finds his lo...

One of my favorite series of fantasy novels. This series is for kids to young adults, but I reread them a few years back and still enjoyed them. It is often what I recommend to those who liked harry potter and want something similar. It is full of good morals mainly geared to growing men, and values honesty and integrity over flash and heroics. Its not all wholesome cheerios though, they are genuinely great books.The series starts with The Book of Three. It is simple and a bit childish; frustrat...

I received this set of books, I believe, back when I was about 9 or 10 years old. 1984. While I'd been reading for as long as I could remember (my parents insisted we did, and I thank them for that), these books changed reading from something I was expected to do into something I wanted to do. An appetite that still hasn't been sated.They tell the story of a young boy's journey into manhood within a world of fantasy and kings and knights. The boy longs to be a hero, but in the course of his tria...

I just finished reading the whole 5 books in sequence. Each book itself is not long. One book contains between 100-200 pages only. But the journey inside the land of Prydain was certainly a long one. It began with The Book of Three, where Taran was still a teenage boy, eager to see the world, to become a hero, with his prideful attitude. Along the way, in The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, with all the journeys and events, Taran grew up to become a man, kind, compassionate,

I fell in love with these books when they were first read aloud to me as a child, and they remain just as wonderful now that I’m an adult. My husband and I read them aloud to each other during our first year of marriage, and ended up staying up far too late reading on nights when we had to work the next day. The characters are unforgettable, and we find ourselves making allusions to what certain characters would do or say in our situation. I can’t wait until our son is old enough to enjoy them a...

This is a very charming, loveable Fantasy/Coming of Age series and it definitely deserves more attention than it gets. On behalf of all Prydain fans I'd like to ask: Where's our live-action movie version of this? All we have is one very cute (but let's face it, also dated and somewhat inaccurate) Disney animation film!The story basically follows, along the course of five books, the coming of age of young Taran, an assistant pig keeper who dreams of being a hero. He makes (and in many cases loses...

I first read these in junior high, and loved them then. They are out of print now (bummer) but my local library had the complete collection in one tome (yay for libraries!). It's a nice mix of Arthurian legend; Welsh legend, vocabulary, and locale; and Tolkien-type fantasy.The characters are wonderful and memorable--nobody stays a stereotype for long, there are strong female characters, and the heroes all have weaknesses that make sense given their histories and experiences (putting it a good bi...

LOVE THEM ALL!!!

There is no better fantasy series for young adults -- or for adults -- than this story of longing, honor, temptation, companionship, heartbreak, and sacrifice.

1969 Newbery Medal Winner (for Book 5, The High King)This was one of my favorite series when I was younger. It had a huge influence on my love of fantasy fiction. Now, re-reading it as an adult, I can see that it's not flawless, but nonetheless it's still a great adventure with wonderful characters. I read the old book club edition that I've had for years. It includes the five novels, plus a short story collection set in the same world, which is loosely based on Welsh mythology. I kind of flound...

Overall:The Book of Three - 4 out of 5The Black Cauldron - 4.5 out of 5The Castle of Llyr - 3.5 out of 5Taran Wanderer - 3.5 out of 5 The High King - 4 out of 5

Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain are beloved childhood books for me. I can probably blame on them my early obsession with all things Welsh and my emphatic preference for pre-Malory Arthuriana. And also, probably, my immense fondness for crafting-based training montages (see L.E. Modesitt's entire Recluse series.) I'm thrilled to see that they hold up well - better than many of my childhood favorites.They're thoughtful and complex on a moral level. There are very few absolute evils, and fe...

I've been reading these books to my 9-year-old son, and we're both enjoying them. To give you a sense, other favorites of his have been all the Harry Potter books multiple times each, The Hobbit, and recently "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. These books are between Harry Potter and Tolkien in reading level, which I realize is a large gap. Our son, a relatively advanced reader who nevertheless chooses "Takes of a Wimpy Kid" as often as "The Hobbit," could probably read these on his own, once he g...

I was pretty much minding my own business, plucking the odd Encyclopedia Brown mystery from the elementary school library shelves when my third grade teacher told me to check these out. They began a lifelong affection for fantasy novels, specifically fantasy series.It's natural to utter the name Tolkein while discussing these books due to numerous parallels between Middle Earth and The Realm of Prydain, not to mention both author's utilization the multi-volume format. Alexander's Prydain series

I read these individually, having bought a boxed set years ago. They tell a wonderful fantasy story, much younger than The Lord of the Rings to which some try to compare it. While I can't say that I find it anywhere near as good as that epic, it is a worthy nominee to the crown of best Youth and YA fantasy. Adults can and I would think that if they are fantasy fans, will enjoy it also. The books are loosely based in Welsh mythology but they don't strain to stay with it and tell a story that's fu...

Stephen King once said that he'd pay someone millions of dollars if they could invent a machine that would let him feel as though he's reading his favorite books for the first time again. If such a machine ever comes to be, the Chronicles of Pyrdain will be the set of books I spend my (imagined) millions on. Better YA than nearly anything out there today. Little pieces of wisdom scattered throughout all five books. Heroes who pay a dear price for every piece of wisdom they gain and every victory...

I loved these books when I was a kid. They're a sweeping fantasy tale of good v. evil rooted in myth, and also a funny, affectionate coming of age story. I was afraid they wouldn't hold up when I returned to them a few years ago, but they were still wonderful. Princess Eilonwy is one of the best girl-best-friends characters ever - and she gets the best witty lines.The movie The Black Cauldron was very loosely based on these books (very loosely).

It's a very charming fantasy series with a great sense of humor, likable characters, and culminates in a painful coming-of-age story for main character Taran the Assistant Pig-Keeper. It's also heavily based on Welsh mythology, folklore, and naming conventions. I'd recommend it to anyone, of any age.

Made me want to be a blacksmith. Great adventure.

Re-reading (28 years later) on 12/13/10.

The Chronicles of Prydain is an epic fantasy series by the late and great fantasy author Lloyd Alexander. To really appreciate his work you must read this series. Think the lord of the rings but on a feudal level, and written for children.The series contains these stories:The Book of Three – In which Taran an assistant pig keeper sets off to find a runaway pig that tells the future and ends up on a quest to save Prydain from the forces of evil. He is joined by Princess Eilonwy who possess a stro...

I first encountered Lloyd Alexander's work—not knowing who he was—when I read his first fantasy novel for young adults, Time Cat. To this day, I have fond memories of that novel of my youth, but when I began reading The Prydain Chronicles, possibly Alexander's most famous work of fantasy for children, I actually didn't make the connection between it and Time Cat; I had originally bought The Prydain Chronicles because I also fondly remembered the largely forgotten animated Disney movie The Black

"The Chronicles of Prydain" is one of those fantasy series that is not only a classic, but really timeless -- it's a mishmash of heroic fantasy and Welsh folklore, a few rungs below "Lord of the Rings" and a few inches down from "Chronicles of Narnia." And Lloyd Alexander's writing is absolutely sublime, melding sorrow and humor even as the heroes fight to save the world."The Book of Three" opens with Assistant Pig-Keeper Taran yearning for adventure -- and getting more than he bargains for when...

I suppose I'm just getting old and curmudgeonly, but these books just didn't hold up to my middle-school memories of them. It's sad -- I wanted to like them more. But they just continually felt... Clunky and derivative. The characters were mostly one-dimensional (Gurgi and Fflewder Fflam, in particular, always spoke in repetitive turns of phrase, making them feel like Mad Libs more than people). Alexander skipped over so many details that it felt like he either wasn't paying attention or hadn't

Finally, books I remember enjoying as a kid that still stand up to re-reading as an adult![return][return]They are sometimes described as coming-of-age stories, and that is true in the best sense of the term. Alexander is deeply concerned with growing up, and he examines many of its central, deepest, and most profound aspects, such as discovering one's personal identity, and responsibility. Each book in the series looks at these themes in different ways and builds on them a little more. My favor...

The Chronicles of Prydain tell the story of young Taran, the Assistant Pig Keeper, who embarks on several adventures to battle evil in the mythical Kingdom of Prydain, a land modeled after Wales. The stories are based on Welsh mythology, but Alexander makes the stories very accessible to modern young readers. The characters in these stories are very well developed - the assistant Pig Keeper who would be a hero, the young lady who is the heiress to a line of magic princesses, the would be bard, a...

So even though I technically read these as separate books, it seemed somehow disingenuous towards my final book count to rate them all separately. Particularly because I finished one per day basically just in a train ride. Sometimes, public transit is a real boon.Anyway, these comprise books 2-6 (out of I believe 9 total) books that my dear friend has lent me. Though they're children's books, and though I sometimes long for more darkness and grit, I have to admit I really enjoyed the stories. I'...