When you're young a series can really capture your imagination. The books draw you in and give you a hero who's just like you to identify and grow with.

For my mind if you want some fantasy in your life you needn’t go further than Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Within the forty plus books Pratchett penned in the Discworld is a series for younger readers centring on a young girl from a rural area of the Disc called the Chalk.

Tiffany is nine-years old when we first meet her lying by a river. She promptly dispatches a river monster with a frying pan and befriends a group of small blue men. Only the first of many signs that Tiffany is not your ordinary girl.

It soon becomes apparent that Tiffany is a witch and while witches aren’t supposed to grow on Chalk that doesn’t mean she won’t have to figure out her power to stop all manner of beasties coming for her.

Fortunately Tiffany will have help. The tiny blue men are Nac Mac Feegle, pictsies who can fight their way out of anything (except a pub). The Nac Mac Feegle used to work for the fairy queen, but were booted out of fairy land for fighting (so they say). They believe they are in heaven (because of the things on earth to drink or fight) and when they die they return to the real world.

Terry Pratchett penned five Tiffany Aching novels between 2003 and 2015. Despite not being a younger reader I read Tiffany’s adventures contemporaneously to their release and was absolutely devastated when I finished The Shepard’s Crown. It was Pratchett’s last novel, published after his death, and while a fitting farewell it made me immensely sad to say goodbye.

The magic of the Tiffany Aching books is that despite their central theme of witchcraft and fairy folk they are distinctly grounded. As Tiffany learns how to be a witch she is guided by the best in the land. Granny Weatherwax is a highlight of the Discworld and perhaps the character most closely associated with Pratchett himself. Strong and practical, she guides Tiffany to use her head and worry more about people than magic.

Tiffany is an avid learner. She looks at everyone fairy, human or small blue brawler alike and tries to understand the person. So it is that Tiffany develops his second sight (and then her third sight) distinctive ways of looking at a problem from a range of perspectives. The magic of Tiffany’s world is most closely associated with what Granny Weatherwax calls headology; a way of taking each person on their merits and their circumstances and treating them with respect if not also a little caution.

I’m re-reading these books at the moment (the first two books are The Wee Free Men and Hat Full of Sky) and I’m marvelling at how Pratchett writes for everyone with such panache. It’s not that he’s crafted a book for children that adults will also get the special ‘adult’ jokes. Pratchett gets that we are all living in the same world and just because you are a smaller size of human doesn’t mean you should be condescended to.

Tiffany Aching is an incredible character for all readers but if I had a small person that I wanted to inspire I’d definitely introduce them to this young witch from the Chalk.