I swing my sword and sing I am Me.

I think of Tamora Pierce in some ways as tracing an evolution of feminist ideologies… There’s Allana, who has to pretend to be a man, and in many ways has the traditional “woman in man’s role” characteristics… then there’s Kel, who refuses to hide her femaleness in order to do a “man’s” job, and has to work harder than many men in order to do it. She’s not fierce, she displays little testosterone. In some ways she’s stronger than Allana. But without Allana she’d not have the opportunity to be the woman she wants to be. Kel can go strongly because Allana screamed.

And there’s Allana’s daughter, who runs away, refusing to follow her mother’s footsteps, and finds her own way in life – a strong way in and of itself.

(I haven’t read the series in between the Allana and Kel books. I wonder how that went. That woman was not a warrior, exactly, and more of a healer/singer? She talked to animals? I must find out.)

She’s not the best of writers. But I like her, I think, a great deal.