Brian Jacques Homeschool Unit Study
As an admittedly sentimental and voracious reader, especially in childhood, I’ve built quite a list of authors whose stories have stayed with me (you can read about some of them in this Homeschool Living). But none hold quite the same place in my heart as Brian Jacques. I spent years in my pre- and early teens reading and rereading his books, then sharing them aloud with my younger brothers and friends. Twenty-two well-worn hardbacks—accumulated over years of Christmases, birthdays, and book sales—still hold a place of honor on my bookshelf today. Even now, flipping through my collection some twenty-five years later, I can recall entire passages of his beautiful prose by heart.
Redwall offers endless opportunities for cross-curricular exploration. This Teacher’s Guide to Redwall by Carol Otis Hurst is an excellent resource for developing a homeschool unit study around the series. It includes synopses of the first eleven books, an interview with the author, and activities that weave in language arts, science, social studies, and art. Students can examine characterization and symbolism, research animals, design maps, or even create their own Redwall-inspired board game.
Jacques’s life was as colorful as his stories. Born in Liverpool, England, just before World War II, he left school at fifteen and worked a wide variety of blue-collar jobs—merchant seaman, railway fireman, truck driver, and more—before publishing the first Redwall book at age forty-seven. In the 1970s, he and his brothers performed as a folk group called The Liverpool Fishermen, sharing music blending traditional and contemporary Irish and Liverpool folk songs, maritime shanties, and monologues. You can listen to two songs from their album on YouTube: “In My Liverpool Home” and “Leaving Liverpool”. I love that they embody much of what I feel in the original songs featured in his books–merry folk songs and traveling music, with a strong sense of loyalty and affection for the singer’s hometown (or homeland).
Later, he hosted a popular BBC Radio Merseyside program called Jakestown, blending storytelling with his love of classical opera. He was described as a classic example of the self-taught working-class intellectual, equally happy to discuss operas by Puccini, the plays of Ibsen, or the novels of Dickens, as well as the weekend’s football scores.
The first Redwall manuscript was handwritten on 800 sheets of recycled paper and read aloud to children at the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind, one of the stops on his milk delivery route. Jacques volunteered to read aloud for the students, but, finding that many of the books available centered on teen angst, divorce, and family dysfunction, he set out to write stories filled with courage, hope, and honor.
“I have no empty heroes. My goodies are good, and my baddies are bad. There are no schizophrenic goodies or sympathetic baddies. And children like it that way; it’s not confusing. And they want the goodies to defeat the bads.” Knoxville News-Sentinel (January 29, 1999)
This led to the creation of his fantasy series, a series of epic battles between good and evil, characterized by beautifully descriptive prose, a wide variety of adventurous characters, and vivid depictions of food, feasts, and music. The depth of description and wide and varied vocabulary were an intentionally rich use of language to create a world that could be seen and felt by his audience of vision-impaired children. He often said that the only thing one needed to do to become an author was to “learn to paint pictures with words.”
“I wanted to write something visual that I could read to the children. This was when I created the idea of Redwall Abbey in my imagination. As I wrote, the idea grew, and the manuscript along with it.”
Progeny Press has an excellent study guide available for the original book, Redwall. It features explorations of dialect and linguistic styles, analyses of character motivation and development, Biblical tie-ins, and more. It is not a free guide, but it is relatively inexpensive, and a free sample of the guide is available here, so you can get an idea of how you might use it as a teaching tool before purchasing or even use it as inspiration for your own homeschool unit study.
Jacques drew heavily from his real-life experiences in populating his fantasy world with diverse character groups and cultures. Seafaring otters reflect his years at sea; his hares recall RAF pilots from WWII; and the moles’ speech patterns echo old Somerset dialects he picked up as a long-haul trucker. His stories blend humor and heart with the reality of life and loss.
“Everybody doesn’t live happily ever after in my books; there is life and death in them. But as in life, if you have a friend that you loved and that friend dies, then he or she will always live in your memory.” Biography Today: Profiles of People of Interest to Young Readers. Author
Series, Volume 5 (1999)
Brian Jacques Food Features
Over the years, fans from around the world have sent Brian countless letters asking him all about his inspiration, his characters, and himself. You can find his answers to the most frequently asked questions here.
He has said that his vivid and extensive descriptions of the food served in his imaginary world answer the questions he often had as a child.
“It used to drive me completely bonkers when I would read in some story or book ‘and the King gave a great feast for all his people.’ And I would think ‘Hang on now! What did the King serve? Was there enough for everybody? What did they eat? What did they drink? And just what is “mead” anyway? Were there tons of pastries for everyone? Was there music and singing? Did they all have a great time?’ So when I wrote my stories, I made sure that I described, in minute detail, the feasts at Redwall Abbey.” Authors by Request: An Inside Look at Your Favorite Writers (2002)
Food and its description also feature extensively as a demonstration of love and support, with characters often sharing their last bits of supplies with traveling heroes or creating something lovely for friends and family from simple ingredients — an attitude instilled in Jacques early in his developmental years during wartime rationing.
While there is an officially published Redwall Cookbook, which you may be able to find at your local library, fans of the series have been experimenting with recreating the delicious dishes long before it was published. My brothers and I spend days planning, cooking, and serving a Redwall-style feast for our family when we were kids! You can find some fun recipes to try out in these blog posts from The Redwall Cook and Redwall Adventures.
Brian Jacques Love of Lyrics
One of my favorite parts of the book series is the hundreds of original poems, songs, and riddles entwined within the story. While I grew up making up my own tunes to the words on the page (and singing them to anyone who would listen) I highly recommend checking out at least one of the audiobooks. Narrated by the author himself and featuring a full voice cast with music and song, they are a treat in and of themselves. Audiobooks may be available at your local library, or you can check out extensive samples of the audiobooks through Google Play Books. Some of my favorite titles are Mariel of Redwall, The Long Patrol, Lord Brocktree, and Mossflower.
One of the most admirable qualities of this author was his dedication to his audience. He wanted better stories to share, so he created them himself. He made Redwall, with its world, characters, and stories, and devoted the rest of his life to keeping the series alive with the principles he felt were important. Whether you’re discovering Redwall for the first time or revisiting old friends through a homeschool unit study, Jacques’s stories remind us why good tales—and good hearts—stand the test of time.
“To me, a warrior is somebody you always can trust, somebody who will defend the weak and who’s not a bully. A warrior is somebody all of us can look up to and say ‘You can go anywhere with that person. You can trust that person’s word.’ They’re very good to the family, and always true to their friends. I always say to a kid, ‘Now that’s what a warrior is, and you ought to be a proper warrior, if you want to be a warrior.'” Waldenbooks Hailing Frequencies (March-April 1995)
Megan Mora Fuentes
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