We are all Assistant Pig-Keepers at heart

“Most of us are called on to perform tasks far beyond what we can do. Our capabilities seldom match our aspirations, and we are often woefully unprepared. To this extent, we are all Assistant Pig-Keepers at heart.”
― Lloyd Alexander, The Book of Three

It’s the 50th anniversary of The Book of Three! Taran is one of those characters that I didn’t even understand HOW formative he was until I got older. Each year makes me realize more how much of an impression he made on me — how much I wish to be like him, when I am at my very best.

And how I wish I’d written Alexander to tell him so, when he was still with us. Write your literary influences! Write them, and tell them. Certainly they will be delighted, but it will be good for you, too. I delight in Taran, Eilonwy, Coll, Dalben. Wonderful, surprising, big-hearted Gurgi. Ridiculous Fflewddur Fflam. (who, did you know? Is the name of a real person! I stumbled across him years ago researching another name.)

I am so grateful to all of them. They are people to me. And to Alexander, who breathed life into them and set them free so that I might meet them.