Please Welcome Author Leslie Soule to the Island

Brian Jacques: In Memoriam

I was saddened to hear of the death of author Brian Jacques in February of this year. I’d read and loved his books as a child. When he passed away, I wondered if there would be a grand procession of sword-carrying mice, otters, squirrels, and hares. I pictured them carrying long, wavering banners on stout wooden poles, speaking in loveable British accents and offering scones to the people who’d gathered to mourn. Poems would be recited and songs would be sung of the creator of the Redwall series.

I felt the need to write a remembrance poem to the author I so loved but never met, and I styled it after the poems that filled Jacques’s work. Without futher adieu, here is the poem I came up with.

The Summer of the Changing Winds

"You came and went like a summer breeze,

Master of the Abbey with the sandstone walls.

Whose words echo, immortal, from the leaves

of books and down through the Great Hall.

Through time immemorial,

battles of Good and Evil rage,

but I retreat to peaceful Redwall Abbey,

with only the turning of a page."

I first got a hold of a Redwall book when I was in the sixth grade. There were books laid out on a table and we could pick one out to take with us and keep. I chose Mattimeo, by Brian Jacques. Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. I still have that old paperback, and I read it so many times growing up, that it’s now in fairly bad shape. I’ve had to put packing tape all over the front cover just to keep it together.

Then, when I was a young teenager, I saw on the Redwall.org website that kids were creating Redwall-style websites and I decided to create my own. It was a site where people could submit poetry, poems, recipes, and play games, and everything was based on the Redwall series. That site was called Lunar Isle. So if any of you Lunar Islanders are still out there, it is my pleasure to unmask myself as the one and only Kaliah Wolfsbane.

Wow, that was a long time ago. But suffice to say that the Redwall series brought a lot of joy into my life as I grew up. I smiled as I looked at a website called the Redwall Compendium, and to my shock and delight, saw an old Lunar Isle award that I’d given it! Ha! Oh, how I loved Microsoft Paint.

 Suffice to say, Brian Jacques will be dearly missed and his novels have brought joy to many, many people.

You can check out Leslie's site here as well as info on her new YA Steampunk release Birds of a Feather