Introducing Redwall
Liverpudlian author Brian Jacques wrote no fewer than twenty-two novels in the Redwall series, but the best-known and most-beloved remains the first, originally published in 1986.
Mossflower, the forest environs that skirt the Redwall Abbey, is a kind of Eden—a shire of safety, peace, and abundance. As the novel opens, we find ourselves at the start of the Summer of the Late Rose, celebrating the Golden Jubilee of that wise old mouse, Abbot Mortimer, and we are instantly introduced to the kind-hearted, aspiring, and rather clumsy character of the novice, Matthias, our “unlikely” hero. 
“Mossflower country shimmered gently in a peaceful haze, bathing delicately at each dew-laden dawn, blossoming through high sunny noon tides, languishing in each crimson-tinted twilight that heralded the soft darkness of June nights.” 
From their first introduction to us, the characters, usually mice (of all varieties), but also thrushes, rabbits, badgers, voles, ferrets, weasels, hedgehogs, stoats, bee folk, and the great antagonist of the novel—a mighty Bilge Rat and “God of War” named Cluny the Scourge and his evil horde—have a great tactile dimensionality, an animalistic adorability (or repugnance) combined with human foibles, tics, ambitions, and predilections. Immediately in this winsome and rollicking tale Jacques’s masterful characterization helps foster a natural verisimilitude in the eyes of his readers, and this anchors the tale of the mice of Redwall Abbey to the known world—to the realm of human relationships, fears, talents, evils, and bravery. 
Of the many pleasures of this timeless story is the rich and detailed natural imagery that Jacques seamlessly suffuses into the work. Damsons and quince, bilberries, and chestnuts, the leafy resplendence of early summer is present throughout the book, and provides an emotional anchor for the edenic shire that is Mossflower. No wonder then that when trouble comes to Redwall Abbey, we find ample resources of bravery and wits to help keep this beautiful place safe and secure for another generation of woodland creatures. 
Find a cozy spot to snuggle up and enjoy this one—happy reading!
-Allen Guy Wilcox