Knowing their absent father wouldn’t know the difference, she dressed up like a boy and went to the place where noble kids learn to be knights at the palace in Tortall’s capital, Corus (is this like military school?). So, I’m a big fan of diversity and a variety of representation where I can get it.įor those of you who don’t know and for some reason have been reading up to this point, Alanna is a girl who wanted to me a knight while her twin both her really didn’t want to be a knight, he wanted to be a sorcerer. Of course, we see this getting better as family makeups change and we see more men taking parental leave or gay couples having children together and people just generally challenging work places to be more accommodating to parents (within reason, you still probably shouldn’t bring your toddler to your office for the day and expect coworkers to be ok with that). Whether we like it or not, a woman is disproportionately likely to face repercussions in the work place once becoming a parent. This is a struggle for Alanna throughout the books and I think that process feels very real for many women who feel like they have to sacrifice their real life careers to have a family. I don’t know if I would have enjoyed these amazing books as much or have read so many of them if I hadn’t weaned myself on such amazing YA novels.Īnother reason I feel like The Song of the Lioness series was formative was because it showed a strong female character who learns that it’s ok to be a woman and to have a career and be a strong badass and also get married and have kids. If you know anything about these books then you know that they’re heavy duty, long, and have deeply detailed worlds. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice series ( Game of Thrones, if you prefer), and Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives, Patrick Rothfuss’s series starting with The Name of the Wind, George R.R. I’ve read tons of novels since that are way more detailed and complex, including J.R.R. In a way, these novels were fairly formative for me.įor one, it fostered my love for fantasy. Alanna The First Adventure (1), In the Hands of the Goddess (2), The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (3), and Lioness Rampant (4) were a few of my favourite novels that I read a number of times as a teenager and even during university.

Recently, I revisited the Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce.

Song of the lioness quartet