The Joys of Rereading Tamora Pierce

[bibliogramma]

Alanna: The First Adventure, Tamora Pierce
In the Hand of the Goddess, Tamora Pierce
The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, Tamora Pierce
Lioness Rampant, Tamora Pierce

No, Tamora Pierce's novels are not particularly demanding. But they're fun, and this particular series is, like many of her books, about a plucky young woman who makes her way in a man's world, and does so spectacularly well. And when you're feeling like regaining some of your long-lost youth and reading some deliciously wish-fulfilling sword-and-sorcery on an unusually chilly winter night, Pierce delivers.

One thing that struck me when I reread these earlier this winter was that, like Mercedes Lackey's earlier Valdemar books (the Arrows and Last Herald-Mage trilogies) and several other fantasy and science fiction books for young adults, these books allow their youthful characters to explore their sexuality in ways that, I think, are becoming less common in non-genre books for young adults. Alanna actually has sex with several people in the course of the series before she picks one to make a commitment to, and surprise, it doesn't scar her for life.

The messages in fiction for young adults have become of greater personal importance to me in recent years, because I have two nieces now edging into adolescence that I hope to see incurably infected with an eternal love of books (mind you, her mother is doing quite well with that, but I'm always to glad to help). And because Alanna makes her own way, because she tries to do what's right, because she's better at what boys do than most boys, because she is a hero, and even because she has sex without worrying about the morality, just the ethics of it all, I'm really glad that my sister of the heart has been giving her daughters these books to read.