Rakkety Tam
Click to look inside
World of Books
The feel-good place to buy books
Rakkety Tam by Brian Jacques
The Redwall series is soon to be a Netflix original movie The bestselling Redwall saga continues in Rakkety Tam. There has never been a Redwall hero quite like Rakkety Tam, the roguish Highlander squirrel who sets off for Mossflower Wood on a mercenary errand and loses his heart to the charms of Redwall Abbey. And there's never been a villain quite like Gulo the Savage: a vicious beast-eating wolverine who descends upon the Abbey in search of a relic called the Walking Stone. Readers will cheer at the return of the Long Patrol, the antics of a renegade vole thief, and the emergence of a new champion to wield the sword of Martin. Perfect for fans of T. A. Barron's Merlin saga, John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice series, and J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series.A well-known radio personality in his native Liverpool--as well as an actor, stand-up comic, and playwright--Brian Jacques is the host of Jakestown on BBC Radio Merseyside. Ever the performer, Jacques is well-known for applying his acting and entertainment background to his lively presentations to legions of young fans at schools across the United States and England.
Brian Jacques was born in Liverpool, England on June 15th, 1939. Along with forty percent of the population of Liverpool, his ancestral roots are in Ireland, County Cork to be exact.
He grew up in the area around the Liverpool docks. His interest in adventure stories began at an early age with reading the books of: Daniel Defoe, Sir Henry Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Thomas Malory, Robert Michael Ballantyne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Kenneth Grahame. He attended St. John's School, an inner city school that had its playground on the roof. On his first day at St. John's, at the age of ten, he had an experience that marked his potential as a writer. When given an assignment of writing a story about animals, he wrote about the bird that cleaned a crocodile's teeth. The teacher could not, and would not, believe that a ten year old could write that well. When young Brian refused to falsely say that he had copied the story, he was caned as a liar. He had always loved to write, but it was only then, that he realized that he had a talent for writing.
Some teachers at St. John's proved to be good role models. As Mr. Jacques recalls:
My favourite teacher was Mr. Austin Thomas. He looked like Lee Marvin. Big Man. A Captain in World War II. He came to school on a big bush bike with the haversack on back. He was a man's man. Always fair. I was fourteen at the time when Mr. Thomas introduced the class to poetry and Greek literature. (Because of him, I saved seven shillings and sixpence to buy The Iliad and The Odyssey at this dusty used book shop.)
This interest in poetry extended to Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Goldsmith. It was also at St. John's that Brian met a teacher, Alan Durband (who also taught two Beatles, Paul McCartney and George Harrison), who, more than thirty years later would bring about a major change in his life.
After Brian finished school at fifteen, he set out to find adventure as a merchant seaman. He travelled to many far away ports, including New York, Valparaiso, San Francisco, and Yokohama. Tiring of the lonely life of a sailor, he returned to Liverpool where he worked as a railway fireman, a longshoreman, a long-distance truck driver, a bus driver, a boxer, a bobby (Police Constable 216D), a postmaster, and a stand-up comic.
Penguin mourns the passing of celebrated children's book author Brian Jacques
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780441013180 |
| ISBN 10 | 044101318X |
| Title | Rakkety Tam |
| Author | Brian Jacques |
| Series | Redwall |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Penguin Putnam Inc |
| Year published | 2005-08-30 |
| Number of pages | 384 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |