Jedediah Berry on Travel Light

Fri 23 Jan 2026 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Leave a Comment | Posted by: Gavin

I was looking for something and came across this note on Travel Light that Jed sent me in September 2005 for the Small Beer newsletter:

Travel Light is a book that goes places you never quite expect, even when you’re the one who’s writing it.

No, I didn’t write Travel Light. But when Small Beer Press decided to release Naomi Mitchison’s wondrous novel as part of their Peapod Classics series, it fell to me to rewrite it—retype it, to be more precise—because no electronic version of the text existed. And somewhere between the death of Halla’s adopted dragon/father and her arrival on the mean streets of medieval Constantinople with only Odin’s magic cloak to help her, I realized I had no idea what was going to happen next. And I was giddy about it, all the way through the last chapter: I couldn’t write (read) (type) fast enough.

There is so much that is familiar about this fairy tale novel. There are dragons and heroes, and an exiled princess. There are unicorns, Valkyries, and corrupt priests. But in Mitchison’s world, the princess is better off with the dragons than with the heroes (even the tragic ones), and when the Valkyries offer to recruit her, or when she learns the truth of her lineage, she still must find her own way.

Travel Light is a classic, but only on its own terms, as all true classics must be. It is a surprising tale and a first-rate adventure, and always thoughtful in the telling. As Halla learns and unlearns each step of her journey, Mitchison greets us with the cheering knowledge that the wandering itself is what counts.

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