Brian Jacques is dead at 71. His books were painfully boring from my perspective, but the content is pretty innocuous and there are tons of them and they've done wonders for literacy among middle school boys. I've had kids who hate reading who would devour those one after the other. Just because I couldn't even get through a single book doesn't mean I don't respect and revere the man for writing a huge long series I didn't even need to hard sell reluctant kids to read. Get them to read one series of books, and you can often soft sell them on others after. I know he'll be greatly missed by students and English teachers all over the English speaking world.
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