Squire (Tamora Pierce)

Author Biography

Tamora Pierce has written numerous renowned fantasy novels, set in either the “Tortall” universe or the “Circle” universe. In 2013 she received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for her body of work.

Published By: Random House Inc.

Year: 2001

ISBN: 978-0-679-88916-8

Reading Level: Grades 8 and up

Reader’s Annotation:

Her term as a page over, Kel is chosen to serve as squire to one of Tortall’s most famed knights. Her next four years will be filled with new adventures, new hardships, new threats, and new opportunities to prove her chivalrous spirit.

Plot Summary:

Fourteen-year-old Keladry of Mindalen has finished serving as a page and is ready to be a squire, the next step toward achieving her dream of knighthood. Unfortunately, no knight seems to want a female squire… that is, until she’s chosen by Raoul of Goldenlake, a renowned hero and leader of the fighters known as the King’s Own. Unlike her conservative training master Lord Wyldon, Raoul wholeheartedly respects Kel and values her skills. For the first time, her work offers the promise of pleasure as well as struggle.

Over the course of the next four years, pleasures and struggles alike are plentiful. Kel and her comrades fight centaur bandits, learn the ways of knighthood, and take part in the Royal Progress, a two-year tour of Tortall made by the royal court. Meanwhile, Kel becomes a bad-tempered baby griffin’s reluctant caretaker, gains renown on the jousting field, and continues to defy pervasive social injustice. She also has her first true taste of romance, as her crush on her best friend Neal is replaced by a real relationship with fellow squire Cleon. All the while, she dreads the trial in the Chamber of Ordeals that awaits her, from which some squires never return.

Critical Evaluation:

The third chapter of the Protector of the Small quartet largely continues the first two books’ slice-of-life format, but as Kel steadily grows toward knighthood and womanhood, the action’s scale grows steadily grander. As a squire, she joins her knight-master in all his duties, traveling with the king and queen, jousting in tournaments and seeing real combat for the first time. The latter is no mundane combat either, as war begins to brew between Tortall and its neighbor Scanra: the first real threat to the kingdom since the Immortals books, with sinister new magic in the enemy’s hands.

For the most part, however, Squire still follows the everyday life of an aspiring young knight, whose training and adventures are blended with the typical life lessons friendships and budding romance of adolescence. At the same time, this book, like First Test and Page before it, has a distinctly more “adult” tone than either the Song of the Lioness or Immortals series did, replacing their fantasy adventures with increasingly dark, gritty medieval realism. The Tortall portrayed here is clearly a place where sexism and other bigotries run rampant, where villages are ravaged by bandits and famine, where laws are stacked against the poor in favor of the rich, and where not even liberal rulers like King Jonathan and Queen Thayet can make all the changes they want.

A staunch idealist like Kel is just the kind of heroine this grittier Tortall needs. With her eternally stoic determination that hides a deeply compassionate heart, and with her quiet rejection of the unjust status quo, she already lives up to the ideals of knighthood. While it’s clear that no easy path lies before her, we still end this book eager to see her future as a lady knight.

Curriculum Ties:

•Fantasy worlds

•Feminism

Challenge Issues:

•Violence

•Disturbing imagery

•Sexual references

•Rape references

•Menstruation and bodily function references

•LGBTQ references

Why This Book?

With its blend of adventure, gritty social commentary, strong characterizations and growing suspense, Squire is a worthy addition to the Protector of the Small quartet and to the Tortall universe as a whole.