Staff Picks: Liz Scott’s Favorites

A high fantasy young adult novel, Redwall tells the tales of Redwall Abbey and its mission to provide sanctuary to all who seek refuge from a dangerous warlord. It follows the story of Matthias, a young mouse who lives at the abbey but yearns to help save the world and stop the wretched Cluny the scourge. My sister and I discovered this series first through its animated series. Once we found out the series was based on books, we were both hooked, sharing in the adventures of the world of Redwall. The most fascinating part about this series is that while the setup is something akin to a medieval setting, all of the stories are influenced by Brian Jacques’s experiences as a young boy growing up in England during WWII. This beloved series is also set to become a Netflix feature sometime in the future so I highly recommend getting to know this wonderful world sooner rather than later.

I couldn’t let this list go by without a Star Wars recommendation. While I could — and I have — talk about Star Wars books at length, I will start with just one. Timothy Zahn’s amazing Thrawn trilogy — bringing the Grand Admiral back into the cannon storyline — is by far one of my favorite character studies in the franchise. Love him or hate him you will find yourself wanting to see him win. The first installment follows his rise through the Imperial ranks. As someone who never roots for the bad guys as far as Star Wars goes, I found myself really wanting to see Thrawn win. His motives are not that of power and prestige but honor and protecting his home world. By the time I finished this trilogy (and its follow-up prequel trilogy), I became a huge fan of Thrawn.