Reaper Man

But that was before DEATH started pondering the existential. Of course, the last thing anyone needs is a squeamish Grim Reaper and soon his Discworld bosses have sent him off with best wishes and a well-earned gold watch. Now DEATH is having the time of his life, finding greener pastures where he can put his scythe to a whole new use.

But like every cutback in an important public service, DEATH's demise soon leads to chaos and unrest — literally, for those whose time was supposed to be up, like Windle Poons. The oldest geezer in the entire faculty of Unseen University — home of magic, wizardry, and big dinners — Windle was looking forward to a wonderful afterlife, not this boring been-there-done-that routine. To get the fresh start he deserves, Windle and the rest of Ankh-Morpork's undead and underemployed set off to find DEATH and save the world for the living (and everybody else, of course).

In addition to his novels about the fantastic flat planet Discworld, Mr. Pratchett has written several children's books, including The Bromeliad Trilogy and the books about Johnny Maxwell: Only You Can Save Mankind, Johnny and the Bomb, and Johnny and the Dead.

Mr. Pratchett won the Carnegie Medal for his first young adult novel set in Discworld, the amazing maurice and his educated rodents, which was also named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, one of the New York Public Library's 100 Books for Reading and Sharing, and a Bank Street College Children's Book Committee Book of Outstanding Merit.

Mr. Pratchett lives in the English chalk country.