Something extraordinary happened over Christmas: I took my kids to see a big screen adaptation of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, starring Hugh Laurie and Emilia Clarke, who are Big Name Actors from Popular Things. This is significant, because it’s a Discworld novel. And Discworld has never quite become the juggernaut that it always felt like it ought. To my absolute shock and delight, it remained a story of Discworld in its translation to a CGI cartoon for children. It’s remarkably faithful to the book, which is just one in a series that’s dozens long. Rincewind and Twoflower even have brief cameos. I might have welled up at the sight of Terry Pratchett’s name in the opening credits, because I realised this was my kids’ first exposure to his wonderful mind, and vowed to encourage them to explore it further if they showed interest.
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