the idea: write about a girl who disguises herself as a boy to become a knight

the ideator: Tamora Pierce

I first read Tamora Pierce’s quartet, the Song of the Lioness, when I was in 2nd grade.  They were, perhaps, too advanced for a seven-year-old to read but I loved every bit of them.  In those pages I learned about menstruation, about sex, and about what it meant to be a strong woman in a world that doesn’t believe in that kind of thing.  Though they aren’t graphic books, they were an introduction into a world that has stayed with me ever since.

My sister, who gave me the books, consoled me when I reached the end of the quartet.  I wanted to read more about Alanna, the main character who disguises herself as a boy in order to become a knight.  Instead, my sister told me that the next quartet in Pierce’s world focused around a different girl name Daine.  For a while I refused to read them, but in the end my curiosity won over my stubbornness.

The books in this photo have traveled from my mother’s house to my father’s house, from college to my first apartment, and I’m sure will continue to travel.  I’ve read them so many times that I can recognize their smell, and breath it in with a strong sense of nostalgia.  There weren’t many things for a tomboy to cling to in the 90’s.  I hide from Disney princesses and threw my hat in the ring with Pierce’s lady knights, a decision that still reverberates through my life.

Someday, I hope my stories will be returned to in the way that I return to Alanna’s.  Who knows, in the future maybe Theo Baez and Alanna of Trebond will sit next to each other on another young girl’s shelf.