Hi there, and welcome back to the Hugo's There podcast. I'm your host, Seth Heasley, and this time it's another zoomed out author deep dive, this time about an important author in my life, Lloyd Alexander. And my guest for this episode is Jared Crossley. Hi there, Jared. Thanks for joining me.
Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks for having me on, Seth. Yeah, and I discovered you, I think I discovered your blog at some point when I was thinking about, you know, it would be cool to find a Lloyd Alexander expert. And I found your blog, and then I found the biography video. on YouTube. So why don't you tell my listeners about yourself?
Yeah, so I'm currently a professor of children's literature at The Ohio State University. But my connection to both children's literature and Lloyd Alexander started... Way back when I was in middle school, just became a big fan of the Chronicles of Pradane, which he wrote. And because of that, I ended up. when I was an undergrad at Brigham Young University, making a documentary that's a biography about Lloyd Alexander, which you just referenced, that's on YouTube.
That kind of opened some doors to the children's literature world for me. And I ended up deciding to pursue doctoral work and getting a degree in children's literature. Now that's what I do for a living is I teach children's literature courses at the Ohio State University. So that's me in a nutshell. And BYU has the Lord Alexander Museum kind of thing, right? Yeah.
When Lloyd Alexander passed away, he had a couple of good friends that were both professors of children's literature at BYU, and they had negotiated with him. that a lot of his personal belongings would be donated to the university. And so they actually have an exhibit in the library on campus there that's a lot of things from his office, his typewriter, a lot of his books, some artwork.
And just personal mementos of Lloyd Alexander. It's a pretty neat exhibit there. Yeah, that'd be something I'd be interested to see. Was Lloyd Alexander LDS? He was not, no. His only connection to the university was these two professors that were just good personal friends of his. Okay. Found a good landing place for his stuff. That's cool. So let's go ahead and kind of do the...
Intro to Lloyd Alexander. What should people know about him? When you look at – on the back of – well, let's see. Let's put it this way. When you think fantasy books, you kind of tend to think – northern europe right you think you think the british isles and pradane is sort of this fantasy wales kind of thing and you look at his
photo on the back of the books and you think oh he's welsh you know or like like he just it just doesn't scream american to me but he is this american author who is you know into All of that. And I'll let you get into it. Sorry. Sure. Sure. No, that's great. So yeah, Lloyd Alexander was actually born in Philadelphia. So as you said, an American author, lived his whole life right there in Philadelphia area, with the exception of during World War II. So he was born in the 1920s.
And then when World War II came around, he enrolled in the Army. I think he was actually only 17 at the time. He had this desire to do something noble, to do something good, and so he decided to enroll. to fight for the US Army. And during that, he was actually stationed for a short time in the country of Wales, which is... One of the connections that he has to the Welsh mythology and that Northern Europe that you were talking about
And then he was moved into Germany very briefly, but then went to France and spent some time in France, both at the end of the war and then kind of post-war. And that's actually where he met his wife, Janine. which then they immigrated back to Philadelphia, and then he spent the rest of his life living there with Janine and their daughter Madot.
in Philadelphia area. So an American author. However, as you mentioned, when you think of fantasy, you typically think of, you know, these British authors, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis. But at the time that Alexander wrote The Chronicles of Prudane in the 1960s, there wasn't a lot of American fantasy. L. Frank Baum did a lot of great things with it.
kind of the beginning of an American type of fantasy. But Lloyd's work... kind of bridge to the gap between European fantasy, where the Chronicles of Pradane are based on Welsh mythology, however, being written and published here in the United States and kind of creating a new... claim on Americans being able to write a high fantasy. So yeah, that's briefly a little bit about him and his background. I'm sure we'll dive more into it.
And how prolific was Lord Alexander? Was he mostly writing in the sort of young adult children's literature? Yeah, so interesting question. So he actually started out writing as adults. He had this... He had grand ideas of becoming the great American novelist. He wanted to write the war and peace of America. working for I think it was a period of seven years that he
had four different manuscripts that he wrote during that time, and he kept trying to publish them and kept getting rejection after rejection after rejection. And then one day it dawned on him that... He was trying to write about these big ideas that he didn't really have a lot of personal experience with. And so he decided to change his strategy.
And he wrote a book about being a bank messenger, which is the first job that he had post high school as a teenager. And it was called And Let the Credit Go. And he was published and that was his first book that he was able to publish. It was not written for young adults. It was written for adults and he published five or six books for adults. during the first decade or so of his career. But then in the early 1960s, he kind of made this shift and he...
was trying to write a book about a cat that could travel through time. He thought, you know, this idea that cats have nine lives, maybe those nine lives are nine different periods of time and they can travel. through these different lives of theirs. And so that book is titled Time Cat. And just the way that the book worked, he found that it flowed the best for him if he...
had a child protagonist that would go with this cat to these different lives. And then as he wrote that book, he said, I found that the best way I could say what I was trying to say was through this form of children's books. And so then for the rest of his career, he stayed in that, today we call it kind of middle grade, but it's kind of the young adult or upper children's literature. category of books cool okay so let's let's talk about sort of alexander 101 where should people start
Yeah, so he's best known for the Chronicles of Pradain, which we've mentioned multiple times. And most people, when I mention that series, most people are not familiar with the Chronicles of Pradain. However, a lot of people have heard of the series from... The Black Cauldron, which was adapted into a Disney animated film. It's very loosely based on the second book in that series. With pieces of the first one.
Right, right. It's a series of five books published all between 1964 and 1969. Two of the books in that series... Ended up getting Newbery Recognition, which is the top children's award for books written by American authors published in the United States. The second book, The Black Cauldron, got a Newbery honor. And then the fifth and final book, The High King, won the Newbery Medal in 1969 as the top children's book for that year. So that series is...
is what Lloyd Alexander is best known for. And most of the people that are familiar with him, it is because of those books. Yeah. And I have to admit that every time I see on a... a Facebook page or, you know, a group, that kind of thing where somebody says, Hey, can somebody recommend books for my, you know, middle school boy who wants, wants fantasy books? I'm like,
You want Prudane. Prudane is where you should go. Because, you know, for me and I've, if folks want more of my thoughts on this series, you can, I did a comfort reads episode about. The Chronicles of Bourdain, just because during 2020, when we were all home, I thought, I want to read something easy and comfortable. And so I ordered the first two volumes of the Chronicles. There was a 50th anniversary trade paperback.
version i ordered the first two and i deeply regret that i didn't just order the entire series because now i cannot get the high king right it's out of print and so i have the first four and i'm missing the last one so i'm always on the lookout for that one i put a google alert out
for it. But, but yeah, it's, it's, I encountered them first in, I think it was either fifth or sixth grade and all my friends were reading them. We were just passing them around. And I, yeah, I remember reading all five books. basically in that year and a half, two year stretch. I started reading them. I think I was the one who got my friends started on them because my mom just came down to my room and dropped the book of three on my bed and said, you should read this. Your sister liked it.
So that I was off and running. I just absolutely adored them. And it's funny because as an adult, I haven't been a huge fan of fantasy. And you'd think that this series might have started me on more of a path to really enjoy fantasy. I don't know. Other fantasy didn't measure up somehow because it is that perfect pocket of very easy to read. It doesn't go on for pages and pages about the topography or the trees.
And so it reads a lot easier than something like The Hobbit, which is a similar target demographic, I think. I like what you said about recommending this series. Really, this is a great series to recommend those middle school readers that enjoy fantasy. You have the Harry Potter and the Percy Jackson series. Those are so popular that those kids that like fantasy probably have already read those. And if they haven't, they at least are familiar with those.
But the Chronicles of Predain, it's right up that same alley, but because they're older books, they're less... well known than a lot of these other series. But I've found that those people that enjoy those fantasy books really enjoy these books. sometimes even at a deeper level. I once heard Jim Jacobs, who's a former professor of children's literature and Lloyd Alexander expert, talking about these books, he said,
There's a lot of books that you can read and enjoy, and then you just move on from them. He said, but there's something about these books that they just... get under your skin and stay a part of you. They stay with you in a way that a lot of other enjoyable books. don't. And for me, that really resonates. I think that these books, I mean, obviously, here I am a professor of children's literature, and it all really goes back to reading the Chronicles of Pradane. That was what started my path.
on this journey of where I'm at today. And, you know, I had kind of fallen off reading. I've talked about this a number of times to the point that somebody left a review saying I could stop talking about it. But, you know, I read those in... in sixth grade or so. And I think I might've read them once or twice more, but then I didn't really read them again until I was an adult and then was just delighted how much I could fall right back into them and just felt like.
that sixth grade self again. And, and just, you know, I've listened to them on audio several times. There's good audio versions as well. And so there's, there's something that, you know, I look forward to reading to grandkids someday. I read them to my son. Yeah, and that's something very similar with me. I read them in middle school, and I read them a few times at that point.
Because they were so impactful on my life at that time. But then you get into high school and you get all these assigned readings. And I kind of lost that love of reading throughout high school. And then after high school. A couple years went by, and I saw those copies of the Chronicles of Pradane sitting in my room, and I thought, I ought to read those again. It's been a few years.
I picked them up and it relit that love of reading for me as well. So I would say that, you know, if you're someone who is a fan of like the Lord of the Rings movies, but has tried to read the books and found them too dense, you would... definitely have an easier time with the Chronicles of Bredane just because they're lighter. You know, a criticism of them would be they're kind of...
Not a knockoff, but, you know, a very similar thing, right? And basically all of that kind of fantasy owes something to The Lord of the Rings. Yeah, and I actually heard someone one time ask Lloyd Alexander about that. He said, you know, this... feels similar in a lot of ways to Lord of the Rings. How much were you inspired by the Lord of the Rings? And his response was, and I'm paraphrasing, of course, but he said something along the lines of, you know, we all...
all fantasy authors were all pulling from the same pot of story. And so obviously where he was... pulling from Welsh mythology. And that was more of his true inspiration was Welsh mythology rather than Tolkien. But Tolkien also was trying to create a mythology for Britain, which also has those same roots, right? And so they are going to be similar in a lot of ways because they come from that same pot of Welsh mythology or British mythology.
Yeah. So let's talk just briefly about sort of what the series is. It's five books. The first book is the book of three. Protagonist is named Taran. I had the hardest time. I think the version that I read when I was in... when I was a kid, did not have a pronunciation guide. Oh, sure, sure. So I always thought it was Taran. But Taran is the way the pronunciation guide says it. Yeah, and I've heard...
a lot of different pronunciations. The names, because a lot of the names are Welsh names, they can be hard to pronounce. And so they, as you mentioned, there is a pronunciation guide. One time Lloyd Alexander also was asked about the pronunciation of some names and he said, you know, there's a way that I had it in my mind when I wrote it, but it maybe isn't true to the Welsh pronunciation as well. And so...
For you as a reader, you find the way that works best for you. And, you know, some people say Terran, some people say Taron, Teran. But yeah, so. Yeah. there's a delightful sort of cast of characters to around him where you have, you have called the, like the grizzled, you know, A warrior who's retired and just is working on a farm now. And Dolben, who's kind of the Gandalf character, right? He's the old wizard who's very wise. The Henwen, the oracular pig.
It's great. Ilanwi of the Golden Hair, you know, my first literary crush. Right. And Flutterflamm, right? That's one where it's probably Flutter. or something like that for Welsh because it's the double D. He's so funny. I love that character so much. Mentioning you know, the similarities to Tolkien. One other thing I want to point out, and this kind of helps tell readers about what this book is like. The Book of Three really is a great...
textbook example of the hero's journey, right? We have Joseph Campbell, the hero with 1000 faces, this hero's journey that Taryn goes on. All of the parts that you want in the hero's journey are in this book. He leaves his home. There's this call to adventure. And it's so much so that when I...
I used to also teach elementary school and I would use this book with my fifth grade students and we'd talk about the hero's journey. And a lot of people, a lot of my students were like, wow, this copied Star Wars. And it's the same story as Luke Skywalker. And I'm like, actually, Star Wars was made after this book, but they both are using this same arc of the hero's journey. You have Taran, there's this...
a pig that he's in charge of taking care of that runs off. And so he has to go after it. He leaves, he makes these, these friends. help him on his journey. There's this mentor figure. There was the Dalbin that you mentioned, but also there's Gwydion, who's the prince of Pradain, that is this mentor figure for Taryn. Kind of the comic relief. Right. Right. And then there's this, this evil lurking, right? There's the horned King. Who's this giant of a man.
who hides his face behind a mask that is a human skull with the horns of a stag, these antlers, and rides around with this crimson cape. Arms are stained in crimson and he's gathering this army to try and destroy the Sons of Dawn. So you have these two groups really. In Pradain, there's the Sons of Dawn who are there, the protectors. The High King of Pradain is the High King Math. And then you have the evil, right? The good versus evil trope.
You have Aran, who is this death lord, and then his war leader is the horned king. And then you have this small little farm boy, this pig boy, that is working his way through this whole conflict between good versus evil and finding his journey to manhood in this bigger scope of this battle that is going to be taking place. Yeah, yeah. And I believe in this first book, you do encounter the cauldron-born, right? Because they get captured by the cauldron-born and taken to Akron, I think. Right.
The Cauldronborn are so creepy. The way it describes them as being completely silent, because they've basically stolen the voice and personality of these warriors who have died and then been resurrected. in this form. They are silent as the grave, right? Because they literally are dead bodies that have been brought back to serve just the purpose of evil.
Yeah, and that kind of leads into The Black Cauldron where we talk about, you know, that book is much more, I think it's probably the most famous of them just because of the film adaptation. Right. Essentially, they set out to take away the cauldron in order to prevent more cauldron-born from being created. And in all of these, it kind of does have that hero's journey, right? Where in that one, Taran has the...
conflict with the other princeling. I can't remember his name. Eladir. Eladir, that's right. But that story wraps up so nicely. I really, really... Love it. And one thing about these books is, yeah, they are, you know, middle grade kind of stuff, but they don't pull a lot of punches. You know, they get pretty violent at times, you know, more or less the way like the Chronicles of Narnia do, right? swords and battles and and hewing of orc necks and things you know right right
Yeah, and that's one thing. They are fairly violent. They are heavy. There is death. Even some characters that you care about that get killed in the series. Yeah. I feel like it's not overly graphic, right? Because it's intended for that young reader. And so as you said, it doesn't hold any punches, but it's done in still a sensitive...
In a sensitive way, I think. And then it's interesting in the development of the series, and I think I was familiar with this prior to watching the documentary, but he had originally pitched it as a trilogy.
And then ended up, okay, it's going to need to be four books because we need to get Ilanmi to this place. And so the Castle of Lear is kind of the development of that character. And then he also needed to do the same thing with Taran. And so you have Taran Wanderer where he kind of... travels throughout the lands and um you know studies a lot of different trades to try and figure out who he is and i i really love that book um just because reading it as a as a young 11 or 12 year old uh you know
those feelings really connect, right? Well, what am I going to be? Right. Well, that's interestingly enough, as you alluded to, it originally started as a trilogy. But then when he was writing the third book, he realized that this isn't going to be enough. I have to build it to this climax, and I can't do that in this book. And so he wrote a fourth book.
which at that time was titled The High King of Pradain, and sent that to his editor. And she said, you're missing a book here because you allude to Taryn's growth. But we, as the reader, didn't go through that with him. And so that fourth book, Taron Wanderer, he went back and rewrote that. And that's where we go through that growth. That's that moment that he really...
becomes a man, right? He goes out on his own in search of his lineage. He's searching for his parent. He was a foundling. And so trying to figure out who he is.
and trying to do that by finding who he came from, what his lineage is, but he ends up going through this journey of self-discovery and just finding kind of growing into his own as as the man that he becomes yeah yeah so then the actual fifth book is called the high king and that's that's where you kind of have the final confrontation between the the forces of the sons of dawn and good and
Right. And out of the five books, The High King is my favorite, my own personal favorite. And a big reason for that is because of all of the four books preceding, right? Yes. builds upon everything that happens. Every character, with the exception of those who have died, but every character that is in the first four books...
plays a part in this final battle that's in this fifth book. And I feel like Alexander does it masterfully. He weaves all of these storylines together. The threat is real. It's heavy. And yeah, it's a beautiful story of this final battle for the land of Pradain. this final challenge between good versus evil. And everybody, even the animals in the land of Pradain, cannot remain idle.
Everyone has to choose a side, whether they are on the side of good versus evil. And so the stakes are very, very high. Yeah. Usually my favorite book is the one I'm currently reading and writing that series.
But yeah, I always – well, of course, I always – maybe it's the sign of a good series, right, where I feel a great sense of loss every time I finish the hiking. Right. Yeah, it's – I don't know how many times I've read the series, but – the majority of the times I've read it, I've shed tears in that last book because of how
like you said, a great sense of loss when you finish the book and you just have to say goodbye to these characters that you've grown to love and care for. And you've almost become, as a reader, part of their fellowship on their journeys and you have to say goodbye to them, which is always a hard thing to do. Yeah. So is there anything else in kind of... Alexander 101 that you would recommend other than Perdane? Yeah. So, I mean, each of his books, I think, are...
Great examples of who he was as an author. He was someone that thought at a very deep level. There's a lot of philosophical... exploration in his books. I feel like he, more than a lot of other authors, really are trying to explore the human condition in his writings. Why are we the way that we are? And why do we do? what we do as humans. And so one example of this is the book, The Iron Ring, where it's based in ancient India. Each of his books, I think, well, most of his books are...
a fantasy land. So it's not actual ancient India, but it's a land that is based very heavily on ancient India. Analogous to it, at least. Right. And so it really explores the caste system and this idea of, you know, who is... Above who? And because we are born into a certain caste, does that make us better than others who are born into a caste that is perceived as lesser? And you have this king who goes on this journey.
And he meets the lowest of low. He spends time with a grave digger, someone that works at the cemetery who is the lowest of castes in this society. And has this whole conflict about, if this person touches me, do I lose my value? And just this whole exploration of where do we get our value from? Is it because of the rank that we were born into or who we are as people? And I feel like that book, he explores that in a really beautiful way.
You also mentioned Timecat, which is a fun one. If you want a fun read aloud for grade school kids, it's a really nice one. Just because that silly concept of, wait, what if they have nine lives and they're not necessarily... continuous, right? Where they have nine lives, but it doesn't mean they die and they have another one. It means they just kind of live in nine different places. You know, one really great thing about Time Cap...
And it works really well in a sixth grade classroom because the curriculum in sixth grade is looking at world history. And in this book, because... The aspect of this cat traveling through different historical time periods and different parts of the world. It's like one of the lives is set in ancient Egypt. And as Alexander was studying ancient Egypt, he found that cats were...
almost worshiped in that time period. And so we get to see that. And then another time period, it's the cat takes him to... Leonardo da Vinci. And the cat is Leonardo da Vinci's pet in that time period. And so you get to learn a little bit about what was going on in the Renaissance. And so that's a great way of exploring. world history in a classroom or or in your home with with your children and just getting a brief overview of different time periods
through a fictional lens, but that is based in actual history. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of the, what was that series with the Jack Crystal Terrier at Wishbone? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some similar kind of. concept to it. But yeah, it's a good one for kind of starting somebody out with Alexander. The Iron Ring is one that I think I got, my son got to pick a book for like the summer reading program at the library.
And I said, oh, there's a Lloyd Alexander title I haven't read. And he knew about Pranane, so we got that one and I read it to him. That was good. Let's go ahead and let's assume... Some people have read Perdane, right? Maybe they've read The Iron Ring, maybe they've read Time Cat or some of his other fiction, and they want to move on to something lesser known. Yeah, so one trilogy that really... is one of his heavier books or one of his heavier series is the Westmark trilogy.
There are three books in the series. The first one is titled Westmark. The second book is The Kestrel. And then the third book is The Beggar Queen. And this book series is based on the French Revolution. Once again, in a fictional land. And so it's not real heavy on the French Revolution, but that's where it comes from. And I think also... This series is one where Lloyd Alexander, as I mentioned earlier, he fought in World War II for the United States.
And I think after that experience, he spent a lot of time thinking about war and about just the humanity that's in war. I think this trilogy is one way that he was trying to process that aspect of war and really looking at morals. and how your moral compass can shape who you are, but then how this big conflict of war can also... Cause you to question your, your moral compass. Right. Yeah. And I, it's interesting. I hadn't, it hadn't occurred to me that, that it was about the sort of.
inspired by the french revolution but now now that i think of it i there there are some scenes in it that reminded me of the tale of two cities um and um Yeah, it starts out, you know, Theo is the main character in these books. And this is one that I remember reading in seventh or eighth grade, definitely in middle school. And it is a little heavier than Chronicles of Pradane.
And, you know, there's quite a bit of death and other such things. And, you know, Theo, I remember at some point struggles with, I think it's in the Kestrel, where there was some enemy captured, and then they were executed. And he thought that... was that the right thing to do right you know these weren't soldiers these were you know cooks right um but early in westmark right he's a a printer's devil right he he's an apprentice to a printer and uh
The Cabarrus, or Cabarrus, how do you pronounce his name? I usually say Cabarrus. Cabarrus, yeah. He's kind of... Like Wormtongue from The Lord of the Rings where he's kind of proxy leading, you know, ruling the kingdom because the king has kind of gone mad with grief because of his lost daughter. And they're shutting down. printers because, of course, they want to control the media. And attacking the media is a thing.
I guess politicians do. It's still relevant today. And when the soldiers break in, Theo defends them, and he believes that he has killed one of them. by breaking a printing frame over him. And this causes him a lot of consternation about, is that who I am as a person, the kind of person who will do violence? Right. Yeah, and so... That's one thing I really like about Westmark. It follows Theo. After he feels that he killed this soldier, he...
He runs away, right? He spends his life on the run, running from the law, but he's carrying this baggage of like, wow, what did I do? And I hit this guy over the head. He finds out. fairly early on that he didn't kill him that he is alive but he i don't think it made it any easier for him because he he keeps going back to it and like
I wanted to kill him. I wanted to hurt him. At first he is telling himself, well, it was an accident. I didn't want to kill him. But then he realizes later on, no, I, I did want to. Yeah. And, uh, And so he's just struggling the whole book with this moral compass. And it carries on, as you mentioned, throughout into the later books as well. But this idea of when is it okay to hurt somebody?
And there's a situation late in the book Westmark that one of his comrades is being attacked by a soldier and is maybe going to be killed. And Theo has a gun. He's pointing it at the soldier and his friend is shouting, like, kill him, like, kill him. And Theo just can't do it. So someone else comes in and does that, but he just can't bring himself to do it. because he has this struggle of what is right, what is wrong. And it's really fascinating throughout the series to see how war...
plays on Theo and his moral compass. Yeah, when he starts to see... atrocities, right? To see that the enemy is burning villages and hanging civilians, then he kind of... I like the way... I think it's in the Kestrel, right? Where there was a phrase that he had gone mad, but not so... had gone mad enough to not know that he was mad. Right. Right. To believe he was still, still sane. Yeah.
Yeah. And the other interesting thing in this series is it really talks about systems of government as well, because you have this character, Florian, who's much more of a... you know, I guess, small R Republican, right? Where he doesn't believe in monarchy. He's at least anti-monarchist. Maybe he's an anarchist. I don't know. But he wants the power in the hands of the people, right? Yes.
And so the current government is a monarchy. As you mentioned earlier, it's being led by Cabarrus, who is the chief advisor to this. mentally ill king. And so there are a couple of groups that see the evil in this and want to stop it. But there's one group that still feels like a monarchy is the way to go. We just have to remove the evil pieces of it where there's this other group that is like, no, we've got to get rid of a monarchy.
We need to put the power in the hands of the people. And then there's, of course, the aristocracy and the rich people and some of the generals who think, nope, everything's good the way it is. Right, right. Yeah. So really that political tension as well as the personal moral struggle, but then also the whole society, like how is it best to have a society and a government?
Yeah, yeah. I'll be interested to see how it comes out just because, like I said, I read Westmark in junior high and I never continued the series. And so I'm halfway through the Kestrel now and really enjoying it. It's a very good book, a very good series. We didn't mention Mikkel as well. And I don't want to spoil too much, but she's a terrific character as well. Well, and one thing I really want to spend a minute and just...
Give a shout out to Lloyd Alexander for this. His female characters that he writes, he started writing in the 1950s, 1960s. And at that time... having a strong female character was not the norm. There certainly are other great examples as well. But in the Pradain books, he has Ailanwi, who she is Her own character, she will not take from anybody. She's a very strong character. And you see the same thing with Mikkel in the Westmark trilogy.
When we first meet her, she is the low of the low. She's been living on the street, but yet she is so strong. Right. And then another series that we haven't mentioned that Lloyd Alexander wrote is the Vesper Holly series. I think there's six books in this series. But it's also the protagonist is this young girl named Vesper Holly. And it's this almost Indiana Jones type books, but with a teenage girl as your protagonist.
And so going on these archaeological explorations and adventures. And she's also trying to remember. It's been a while. I think she's from Philadelphia. So this is one example of some books that are not based in a fantasy world, but they are based in our world. But that's another... Great example of a strong female character that Lloyd Alexander wrote. And those people that knew him best say that...
He thinks a lot of these characters really are based on his wife, Janine, who was a very strong personality, and so credit to her. But I think that's one thing I really love about Lloyd Alexander's books is those young female characters and the inner strength that they have. They don't need any young prince to come and save them.
take care of, in many cases, they save the prince themselves. With Mikkel, it very often is her actions that are what saves the day. And the last act of Westmark is absolutely terrific. And there's also, what is it, Los Campos? Los Campos? Las Mambas.
Oh yeah. Yeah. The, the, the con man, right. He's, he reminds me of, of flutter flam just because he's, you know, in this, he's definitely a confidence man and going around, you know, peddling elixirs and that kind of stuff. It's just, you know, ditch water. But he has a good heart as well. But he's completely foolhardy when it comes to money and that kind of stuff. I love that at the end of Westmark, he basically got the Nigerian Prince scam done on him before email was a thing.
So there's kind of categorizing the fantasy that's at play here, you know, with something like Pradean, right? You have magic of some kind, right? Where in Westmark, it's much more just... I don't know, and I'm not intelligent enough about fantasy genres to know where Westmark falls, because it's sort of just a secondary world, although I think Brazil is mentioned.
Yeah, so it is a low fantasy, right? So we have high fantasy, which interesting side note, Lloyd Alexander is the person that first came up with that term of high fantasy. But high fantasy, which is where Pradain would fit, you have different types of creatures, different magic, which we don't have in our world. And then there's low fantasy, which Westmark would be a great example of that, where...
It's a world that does not exist, or at least a country that does not exist. It might take place in our world, but it is a fantastical country. Okay. But it still follows the rules of our country. or of our world. And so it would be a very low fantasy.
almost reads like a historical fiction. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's what I was going to say. It does read a little bit more like historical fiction, but yeah, I really enjoyed that. That series. I'll have to check out the Vesper Holly series just because I always enjoy Lloyd Alexander whenever I encounter him. And I just haven't done a deep dive on his catalog. Yeah, those are great ones. One sad thing about Lloyd Alexander, because he is not as well known as a lot of other authors.
A lot of these books are going out of print, and so they are harder to find. A lot of times you might still be able to find some at public libraries or things. Yeah. Or eBay. eBay is one place where I find a lot of Alexander books. And you can usually, if you don't mind getting a secondhand copy, you can usually get them for fairly inexpensive there. But yeah, I have not been able to find an inexpensive copy of that.
50th anniversary of the High King. That's hundreds of dollars if you want to get that one. Right. Yeah. Those 50th anniversary ones are the exception for sure. Yeah. And I want all my books to be the same size. And so I could get another... A copy of The High King. I do have the Bound set that has all of the Chronicles of Prudain and the Foundling and other stories of Prudain.
in it. But that's not the way I like to read it. I like to read it in these small little books that you feel like, oh, I could finish this today. Right. And that's one thing with the Chronicles of Pradane, you know, that 50th anniversary was a very limited release. so they've become quite high demand. But because two of the books got the Newbery Medal,
or Newberry Recognition, that series will never go out of print. And so you will always be able to find a copy of the Chronicles of Prudane, whether it's a paperback or whether it's a hardback copy. They've been in print for over 60 years now and will continue to be published as long as America keeps honoring the Newbery Medal and former winners. Yeah. I always keep hoping that we'll get...
a good television series adaptation of Pridane. I don't necessarily think that the Castle of Lear and Tar and Wanderer need to be adapted into a whole season. I feel like you could stitch those in there to show the development of the characters. But yeah, it would definitely benefit from that treatment, and I don't know what's going on with that. Because the movie, that was one of my first really...
Oh, the book was way better kind of experiences. Yeah, the Disney animated movie certainly disappointed a lot of fans of the book. I will say that publicly Lloyd Alexander never... said anything negative about the movie. When he was asked about it, people were trying to get him to talk bad about it. He said, hey, listen, a book is a book.
and a movie is a movie um you know trying to it it can be its own thing and it's still we still have the book yeah yeah but but i agree i i think a lot of people uh especially fans of the book would love to see some live action adaptations, whether it's a series, like a television series or a series of films or something. Yeah. It's funny. Cause I, I feel like maybe I said this on the comfort reads episode. I don't know that.
the success of the Lord of the Rings franchise has made it less likely to get another, you know, similar kind of fantasy thing off the ground just because it's going to be compared to the Lord of the Rings. Yeah. But, uh, I mean, I, You never know. And especially today with how many series there are that are being adapted into streaming for different platforms. I know Disney currently has the rights to the Prudane books.
Whether or not they will do anything with them, who knows? Yeah, and it'd be one of those things. I worry about the Percy Jackson series. They're not doing it on a schedule. that's going to keep up with the kids aging. Right. And that makes it pretty tough. And, and with, with per day and you would want to, to make sure to, to get that right as well. And that, that probably means that they just start with him slightly older. Yeah, because these characters in the book...
over the five books, there's a lot of growth, right? You start with Taran and Aonwi. It never mentions their exact ages, but they are kind of like that early teen, 13, 14 at the beginning of the book. But then by the end of the series, they have grown into adulthood. They are right around 20 years old or so.
And so it's kind of each book is kind of a year, not quite as formulaic as the Harry Potter series, but they go throughout that growth over the five books. Yeah. Well, any other advanced Alexander titles? Let me look at my shelf here real quick. You know, there are a couple of books that... I think really give a good glimpse into who he was as a person. So the one that came the closest to being autobiographical is the Goggin and the boy. And it is about a young boy.
who is ill and so he's stuck in bed and uh his aunt i think it's his aunt comes and uh brings him these stories and things um and that is about His childhood, he spent about a year, I think it was maybe six months in bed, sick with pneumonia and other illnesses during his childhood. And so he wrote a book about those experiences. Okay. And then two other books, The Wizard in the Tree, that was written in the 1970s. And he was going through a really heavy bout of depression.
at the time that he wrote that book. And I feel like I've heard that the wizard in those books is very autobiographical. And so a lot of the... feelings in that book are straight from that place where he was at that time. And so I feel like that book really gives a good glimpse into who he was as a writer. And then the rope trick. is is the other one that uh so that book um he was uh i think nearing the end of his life it was it was one of his later books it's not his last book interestingly but
I think when he wrote it, he felt like it might be his last book. And so some of the things in that book, you kind of get a sense of a finality. He maybe thought that this was the end. His last book, though, was The Golden Dream of Carlo Cuccio, which he wrote. And then within like two weeks after finishing the final revisions, he passed away. And so it was published, I can never say that word right, posthumously. Nailed it.
Yeah. So it was published after he died. But that was his final book. So I think those are like the main ones. that i can think of one one other one i'll just throw a plug in for it is one of my own personal favorite books and it's one of his first books it was one of the books he wrote for adults and so it is a harder harder one to find
but if you can get your hands on a copy of it, it is well worth the read is my wife. Janine is French, right? It's, it's about his wife and her adapting to American culture. after coming from Paris to the United States post-World War II. And it is a delightful book. It's full of humor.
It really helps you get to know who his wife was. Yeah, maybe that would shed some light on the female characters that he has. Because you think about the life that she led, right? Being in France during World War II. coming to the U S and I don't think she spoke English when they first came. Right. And, uh, she, a funny story, and this is mentioned in the documentary. So anyone that has seen that would, would hear this, but, uh,
She came before he did because they got free passage for war brides on a ship before he was actually released to go home. And so she came and was living with his parents. And they knew someone else that had come across, I think, from World War I, a war bride from France. But they invited her over, and she had... assimilated yeah yeah she had gotten rid of her french accent and janine was just heartbroken and she thought i do not want to become like this like yeah who i am as a
French lady is a part I never want to lose. And so till the day she died, she kept her French accent. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, he was an author and I think he had some, you know. I don't know if he had pension or some, he had some sort of income, right. But, but it can't have necessarily been easy running that house while he was trying to make it as an author. Right. Yeah. It was, as I mentioned, I think seven years that he.
was trying to publish. But for part of that time, I think it was just one or two years that they were still getting those checks from the government. And so after that, he had to go to work and he would work his day job. and then he would try and write at different hours. Even later in life, once he could work solely as an author, he would get up at early, early hours of the morning.
what comes to mind is like four o'clock, but it might've even been earlier than that. And that's when he would do his writing was early in the morning. The house was quiet. Everyone else was asleep. He said that's when the voices really came to him the most. And so I don't know if that is a carryover from when he was working.
multiple jobs or or what but uh he would always get up really early right for a few hours then get up and make breakfast for his wife and and then carry on with the day but uh i was get up early and do his writing first thing. Nice. Nice. Well, kind of as we wrap up here, you know, why should people read Lloyd Alexander? I feel like Lloyd Alexander, and I mentioned this earlier, but he really does.
phenomenal job of exploring the human condition and morals and just all these questions that we all the time are wondering. You know, what is the right thing to do in this situation? And you won't necessarily find the answers to those types of questions, but it allows you to explore those things at a deep level. He was an incredibly intelligent man and he always did.
so much research he would spend about a year researching everything about the topic that he was going to write whether it was a time period a part of the world a culture he would spend about a year doing lots and lots of research before doing that writing. And I've never found one of his books that doesn't hold up, that just does a poor job. I feel like...
Each of his books is worth the time to sit down and read. Obviously, some of them I enjoy better and are probably better books than others, but I don't... I don't think anyone would really regret taking time to read a Lloyd Alexander book. Yeah, yeah. And like you said, some of his books are hard to find, right? Because he's not as well-known an author anymore. I was in...
Barnes & Noble the other day, and there was a big display of all the young adult fiction, and it had Percy Jackson, and the Hunger Games, and some of those other ones. And I thought, this is a mistake here. We should have Pridane in this mix. Right, right. Yeah. Well, yeah, I love talking about Lloyd Alexander. If you want to learn more, my documentary is on YouTube. You can just search Lloyd Alexander documentary.
And it's an hour long, but if you don't want to commit a whole hour on that channel i have little segments from the film as well so yeah um yeah i thought i thought the documentary was excellent and so i'll make sure to put a link in the show notes if folks want to know more about this author that is you know he's a
Classic American author. If you're an American fan of fantasy, especially middle grade kind of fantasy, you should definitely check them out. Awesome. All right. So before we actually sign off here, Jared, is there any place people can find you? Other than the documentary. Yeah. So I am on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. I'm not super active. I do have a Lloyd Alexander documentary page on Facebook as well.
But it's probably been years since I've posted on that. So I'm not real active, but you can still reach out to me there. And there's the blog as well, right? Yeah, there's a Lloyd Alexander blog. I think it's lloydalexanderfilm.blogspot.com. Once again, I haven't posted for a number of years on there, but there's a lot of information about my journey making the film and just Lloyd Alexander in general that you can learn more on there.
Well, I was glad it was there because that's how I found you. Awesome. Yeah. All right, Jared. Well, this was a ton of fun. It was great to revisit some of Lord Alexander's work. I need to read the... Chronicles of Verdane again, because I haven't read them in a couple of years. And then I'm looking forward to finishing the Westmark trilogy as well. And then you've given me some other titles to check out. So thank you so much for doing that.
Yeah. Thank you, Seth. I've loved being on here. I love talking about Lloyd Alexander. And yeah, I appreciate you having me on. All right. And so for listeners out there, if you are a fan of Lord Alexander, any of his works, let us know if there's favorites that we missed or what you think about the suggestions here. All right. Thanks again, Jared. Bye now.
Well folks, I hope you enjoyed that discussion with Jared about an author that's important to both of us. I definitely got some good reading recommendations. from this. If you have not read The Chronicles of Prudane and you're at all a fantasy fan, you absolutely owe it to yourself to do it. If you have kids who are middle grade, grade school to middle school, and you're still reading books to them.
I absolutely recommend The Chronicles of Verdane. I did mention as well that there are excellent audio versions of those on Audible and I'm sure from other audiobook retailers. My son used to go to sleep listening to The Book of Three on CD.
So yeah, like I said, let me know if you're familiar with this author, if this is a new author to you, if there's some other recommendations that you would put for Lord Alexander. So as always, if you'd like to support the... podcasts that i do here on take me to your reader look in the show notes and there are links to the buy me a coffee and to patreon you can also of course retweet and repost however you do that
What's it called? Reskeet on Blue Sky and help me build my network there. I'm also posting everything to Instagram and Facebook as well. So I think that's about it. So thank you so much, everybody, for listening. And I'll talk to you next time. Bye. The theme music for the Hugo's There podcast was composed and performed by Tim Kuske.