Product Description

The third in the epic Protector of the Small series from award-winning US author, Tamora Pierce. Kel is now a squire, having finished her page training. But will any of the palace knights want a girl as their squire? If Kel does get an assignment, her training will suddenly become all the more real - Tortall is at war...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #324224 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

About the Author
Tamora Pierce is a popular and internationally renowned author of gripping fantasy novels for children. Visit her new website, www sheroesCentral.com, cohosted by Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries.

Customer Reviews

Another fun read from Tamora Pierce
I'm enjoying this series of Pierce's books, but I do have a reservation: either her target audience is younger than it used to be, or somewhere along the line someone's decided her books were too "adult" in some way. Whereas her "Alanna" books were written for children/young adults but were still mature and featured realistically developed characters, the characters in this series (and in the "Daine" series) seem to be more childish - at 18, Kel seems younger than Alanna did at 15, and the writing style seems somewhat "dumbed down" too. In addition to this, I could do without the 'talking' animals that have popped up in this world since the Daine books.

However, the pace seems to be promising to pick up in the next book, and I hope that Kel will finally be allowed to grow up. These are still excellent books, especially for girls - considering that the fantasy field seems to be dominated by male characters, it's nice to see YA fantasy fiction featuring strong, independent young women, rather than just soppy love-interests.

a lovely continuation
This book picks up nicely where 'First Test' and 'Page' left off. I loved the details, the plot developments, and I loved seeing Kel growing up - our heroine is not infallible, but she does her best and is loveable because of it. The secondary characters, both those we've met before and some new ones, are also wonderfully real, tangible. Although it's a larger book than the two which preceed it, there is a sense of... hurrying. through it. I suppose this is inevitable when four years must be covered in the book, but I felt that most scenes in the book were largely narrated, without some of the depth that we've seen in other books by Ms. Pierce. Despite this, I found it very difficult to put the book down. The characters are endearing and some of the scrape they get into are brilliant - the author has a wonderful imagination! If you've read 'First Test' and 'Page' and liked them, chances are you'll love this book as well.

a great book, one that i'll read again and again
I really liked this book, but then I've really liked all Tamora's books. Thankfully the publishers have given her more pages to work with (quashing the ridiculous idea that american children won't read books over 200 pages..) and that helps the character development. I found though that it still wasn't enough, everything happened too fast and I wanted to know more about each of Kel's years as a squire!

Kel ages as a character and becomes involved in more adult themes and problems, but all done in a good way.

The book sets up Lady Knight and what I assume will be Kel's 'coming of age' task, and I can't wait for that to be published!

My only complaint is that I wish these books were available when I was 13-14, reading then at 25 is still great, but when I was younger the magic and wonder of this creation would have been better still.