Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Tales

Even though these stories were written in Sir Terry Pratchett's younger years, they show the talent and hallmarks of his writing style (voice), sense of humour and fertile imagination.
The illustrations accompanying the stories are of the entertaining 'quick scratch cartoon' type and he even plays with the fonts in the stories.

Terry Pratchett is one of the very few fiction authors that I read religiously. I picked up one of his books (The color of magic) whilst looking for something to read over 20 years ago at university and have since looked forward to his almost annual happenings of the DiscWorld. His wit and humor portrayed through his expansive knowledge of the English language make him almost a stand up comedian of the written word.

Terry Pratchett's Dragons at Crumbling Gate is a series of 14 short stories penned by Sir Pratchett during his youth and unfortunately it shows.

The book weighs in at a fairly meaty 338 pages however the font is large type and everything is double spaced. The book is also liberally sprinkled with artwork portraying the short stories. As such it doesn't take very long at all to read through all 14 of the stories.

The stories include all manner things as you'd expect from one of Terry Pratchett's novel, wizards, dragons and even Father Christmas (although this short story is really more of a drawn out joke than a short story).

Whilst there are some funny passages (actually more funny sentences) they are few and far between but it does show the beginnings of his command for the English language and viewpoints that are slightly off center which makes them funny.

Unfortunately the stories themselves aren't his best work by a long shot and I also found that they ended fairly abruptly.

In the introduction Terry states that these short stories were published, usually in local newspapers. I can see the appeal of getting out all of his work for posterity but really some things are best left in the past and forgotten. I love Terry's work, especially the discworld novels that has made him a name in writing, but these short stories are unfortunately fairly abysmal and I can't believe I'm going to say this about one of his books but this is one that I would pass on unless you are an out and out Terry Pratchett fan and have to collect all of his writings.

This is a fantastic resource for teachers to teach a whole host of literary elements from figurative language, prediction, cause & effect, to genera studies. Pratchett's fourteen tales are the perfect read aloud lesson length, and each one is filled with vivid language, often wacky characters, and plot twists and turns that get kids thinking, laughing, and imagining.

Example Lessons from Literature - Chapter 2: Hercules the Tortoise
-Premise: a pet tortoise meets new friends, fights enemies, and breaks free
-Text Features: bold, large, creatively styled text to show mood, feeling & added meaning
-Skills discussion: synonyms/antonyms, metaphor, personification, vivid vocabulary, dialogue, punctuation & meaning
-Genera: classic fable (lessons learned), adventure, fantasy

I am a fan of Terry Pratchett, I'll be right up front about that. However, i never read any of his children's books. This book is delightful, similar to Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons in that it presents unlikely situations that will keep children laughing while making social commentary that the adults will understand. This book contains fourteen short stories about various characters and lands. One of my favorites is the story of a magic bus that gets lost in a mist on the moors and finds itself, sequentially, in several different centuries/millennia. I also enjoyed the one about Santa Claus trying to tind a job in the off season. It seems he wasn't suited for anything the job man had available. I think this is suited to children ages six to nine or ten, a bit younger than what the suggested ages. Also, children who can read the Branch books (chapter books for beginning readers) should be able to read these stories, but even those not reading yet would enjoy having these tales read to them.

I have been a fan of Terry Pratchett's for a long time. I love his dry, oh-so-English sense of humor. This books does not disappoint. The stories are funny. A particular stand out is the one about King Arthur. I read some of these aloud to my 5 year old, but I read many of these for my sole entertainment only. The illustrations are great.

A series of children's stories by Terry Pratchett at his quirky and witty best. Pratchett has always known how to craft an interesting turn of phrase. The clever writing and subtle allusions to history and politics make these children stories fun reading for all age levels, including adults.

As an avid fan of Pratchett's other works, I was very disappointed in this book. It is mostly a collection of childish, pointless, not very entertaining or imaginative stories. It is nothing at all like Discworld or Dodger. If you are looking for a similar work, keep looking.

I'm always looking for books that will appeal to reluctant reading children. This is not that book; although I really enjoyed the clever use of language and the wonderful illustrations, this book is not going to lure a child into loving to read, unless he's already there.

Highly imaginative, yes--it is Terry Pratchett, after all, but I'm afraid most of the delightful wordplay will be over the heads of all but the most precocious children.

My son is a fan of the Dragon Masters series. While he is waiting for the release of the next book in the series, I ordered him this book. He said this book is not as interesting as Dragon Masters ones. In fact, he read the second book of Dragon Masters in four days, but with this book he is struggling to get past the first few pages. For reference, my son is almost seven years old but according to Iowa Assesments he is 3rd grade equivalent.

The illustrations in this book are the only good thing. I don't want to insult Terry Pratchett as a writer, but hey, these were written when he was a teenager and for teenage writing, it's promising. But he's far beyond that now and the publishing of his first efforts certainly won't enhance his reputation.

These aren't stories that kids will get into and they have no interest for older readers. I hate writing this review, but these stories should have remained in the author's personal collection and not shared with the public.

Terry Pratchett is best known for his Discworld series, but I have never read it. One of these days, I will get to the bottom of my stack of books and go out to buy some. Consequentially, I can't compare this book to any on Terry Pratchett's more popular novels.

Dragons at Crumbling Castle is a collection of short stories written by a seventeen-year-old Terry Pratchett when he worked as a junior reporter at a local British newspaper in the nineteen sixties. This was at a time when people actually still hired teens to do real work, and you didn't have so many child labor laws to make it impossible for teens to learn a real trade. He did odd stories of random country events, but also wrote weekly stories for children. This book is a collection of those children's stories.

Even at that young age, Terry Pratchett was a talented writer. This isn't descriptive prose to win awards. It's just fun stories that line up one joke right after another. 

There are fourteen stories in this book and each one is funny in a slap-stick juvenile way. I loved them all, but I didn't really laugh at loud at them. My sense of humor tends more toward dry irony, but I can appreciate the humor in this book anyway. I'm actually amazed at the number of clever ideas Terry Pratchett had as a teenager. He has reoccurring stories about the carpet people which inspired his first novel. I really enjoyed the time traveling commuter bus story. Actually, I did laugh out loud for the punchline to that one!

This is a very fun, light book with perfect humor for children third grade and up. I may even up re-reading this book whenever I just need something to cheer me up and a amuse me.