J gives me the same problem I had with I. I just don't have that many J authors I want to reread. The last 2 times I've done Tove Jansson's Moomin books. I'd like to do Catherine Jinks' The Reformed Vampire Support Group, but I cannot locate my copy of that. Then my eye fell on Redwall.
I'm the wrong age to really be into Brian Jacques and his tales of anthropomorphic woodland creatures in a medieval world. They really are kind of like Kenneth Grahame meets Bernard Cornwell. However, despite not being the target audience I did read and enjoy the first few of the Redwall books before they became rather formulaic.
The series opener actually isn't too bad at all. It's the story of a mighty abby called Redwall that shelters and feeds various woodland creatures in the forest around it (badgers, moles, squirrels, otters and the ubiquitous mice, oddly enough there was a hare, but I can't recall any rabbits). The abby becomes the target of a horde of vicious rats, stoats, weasels and ferrets, headed by a large rat called Cluny.
It's also the story of Matthias, a heroic young abby mouse who wants to emulate the legendary Martin the Warrior. Throughout the course of the book he does so and is the main reason that the abby fights off and kills Cluny. That was one thing that set Redwall apart from the likes of Beatrix Potter and Enid Blyton. Creatures did die and were badly injured. Props to Jacques for having the guts to do that, and his publisher for letting it happen.
They've become minor classics now and they're one series that got kids to read in a pre Harry Potter world.
Overall Redwall didn't age that badly for me, although it is clearly a book aged at younger readers and it doesn't cross age lines quite as well as some other children's classics (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland immediately springs to mind. I can read that in an afternoon and it still impresses me every single time).
Have to revisit the land of the adults for K.
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