Not a guilty pleasure, a real pleasure. (Guilty pleasures are like the harem anime I watch...) I'm still saving Enchanted Glass for sometime special, since its almost the last DWJ and after the last one comes out there won't be any new ones.
The Blue Sword was like nothing I'd ever read before. Absolutely mind-blowing to me... that a magic book could be set in another world that was so like but unlike the one we're living in. Narnia, Wonderland, etc. were very different from that experience because they were so like fables and things of our world. I wish everybody could have my fourth grade teacher-- I doubt Robin McKinley is on the reading lists most places. It's all Bridge to Teribithia and other horrid stuff (of course, we read that too). I didn't realize until rereading Hero and the Crown many years later that there was a reason we didn't read that one in class too-- the sex totally went over my head at age 10. The Blue Sword made me realize I could go upstairs to the adult fantasy section to get things to read-- a whole new world!
