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Title: Page (Protector of the Small)
ISBN: 0375829075
Author:
Tamora Pierce
Publicate Date: 2004-08-24
Publish: 2004-08-24
List Price: $8.95
Average Customer Rating: 5.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.83
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.95
Amazon Merchant Price: $8.95
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Tamora Pierce has created another masterpiece!
Keladry of Mindalen has passed her test and is now a full page, dreaming of becoming a knight. Kel is keeping up with life but it's getting hard. She still has to handle to fact that many, many people are still mad about her becoming a page. While she deals with this she is trying to maintain her training. And ALSO trying to deal with her feelings for her best friend, Nealan of Queenscove. In other words life is hectic for Keladry of Mindalen.
In this book there is a part where Keladry shows her skills and leads her friends out of a sticky situation where they're trapped by a group of bandits while the pages are on a little 'field trip'.
"Ladies have no place bearing arms..." I've said it once and I'll say it again...that's WRONG!
I hope you'll read this book, 'Page'. I'm sure you'll love it.
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2: great
I loved this book, the entire series is amazing. I cannot wait until I read the next one.
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3: Tamora Pierce
Tamora Pierce is an excellent writer. All of her books really put you into the stories and make you feel as though you know the characters personally. This book is no different.
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4: A little too concise.
I gave the first of this series 5 stars, and reluctantly subtract one for the execution of her second. The premise is sound - she planned to deal with Kel as a child, a Page, a Squire, and finally as Lady Knight, but the pace and high drama of this book left many things feeling a bit rushed.
Firstly, expect the content to be notably more mature than in First Test. Kel deals with hitting puberty, hitting boys, being hit by boys, and a brutal regimen of forcing down her phobias. This, in addition to intense training, having (and dealing) with crushes on her fellow Pages, and proving over and over and over that she can and will "run with the big boys."
Despite cramming several years worth of experience (literally) into this book, Pierce does an admirable job of containing and streamlining it. The years are well defined, and the individual 'quests' are tightly written and clear. This book also handles the development of Kel's unique abilities in command. Her growing sympathy for commoners and the weak is showcased in a series of growing climaxes. The ending sequence is especially well-done, and younger readers will be very impressed with Kel's maturity and self-sacrifice.
Again, I find that Pierce writes extremely appropraitely for the age-level (estimating by Kel's own age, the pre-teen market) and I find that her focus on morality and strength of conviction in difficult circumstances is fitting for younger readers. I wholeheartedly suggest these books for parents wishing to instil those ideals in their children, in addition to reading them because they are simply VERY nicely crafted books.
**Lastly, as I warned for First Test = Parents who are very careful of the sexual, homosexual, or magical encounters their children have - PLEASE read these books before handing them over to your kids. I personally see nothing wrong with her handling of delicate issues, but you might. And to set your child on a series of entertaining books, and then later ban them for dealing with unfortunate subjects - this makes rebellious and NEEDLESSLY unhappy children. Please, if you are sensitive to sexual references (including a brief mention of homosexuality and extremely frank dealings with rape) and/or the use and presence of magic, please make sure YOU read this first.
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5: Keladry of Mindelan for President!
PAGE is the second installment in Tamora Pierce's PROTECTOR OF THE SMALL quartet and it improves on the already fantastic opening novel FIRST TEST. This particular series is again set in the enchanted kingdom of Tortall and features Keladry of Mindelan, now eleven years old and still as determined as ever to become a knight. In FIRST TEST, Kel successfully undergoes a probationary year which had been unfairly imposed upon her by the conservative training master Lord Wyldon, who doesn't believe that women are cut out to be knights. However, Kel truimphs over every test put in her path and Lord Wyldon has no choice but to add her officially to the ranks of pagehood.
PAGE chronicles Kel's three eventful years as a page. Here, she faces a diverse and ever escalating gamut of challenges, from battle lessons to physical tests of endurance and strength, from suffering growing pains (she develops a crush on a friend) to enduring the persisting scorn of several of the male fraternity, and, on one peril-fraught occasion, fighting for her very life as she and her fellow pages must face off against desperate bandits. And then, finally, there's the all-important and extremely difficult fourth-year exam, which will determine whether she'll advance to squirehood, the next rung up to knighthood. But an unexpected, catastrophic event will transpire which will endanger her chances of even attending the test and will pit her against her greatest weakness. Once again, Kel is well served by her fruitful time spent on the Yamani Islands as she habitually makes good use of the adopted martial training and the poise she had learned from her Yamani instructors. Also, now in her second year, Kel has garnered enough friendships amongst her peers that she doesn't feel quite so isolated. Her horse Peachblossom and her helpful flock of sparrows again prove to be invaluable. Meanwhile, her mysterious, unidentified benefactor pleasantly continues to present her with inestimably practical gifts.
As ever, Kel continues to champion the underdog and the helpless. Here, she takes into her care the homeless and homely but ingratiating mutt Jump (never mind that she's not allowed to have pets) and hires into her service the timid maid Lalasa, who had suffered ill-treatment in her past. Kel aims to foster a confidence in Lalasa by instilling in her a belief in her own worth and by teaching her various martial arts moves for self-protection. Kel also continues her informal evening hall patrol as she keeps a watchful eye out for her nemesis, Joren, and his disagreeable clique of hangers-on, who revel in the abuse of the hazing ritual, too often unlawfully beating up on smaller, newer, and younger pages.
Kel persists in being one of the better young heroines out there. I really liked her in FIRST TEST and, here, she's even more appealing. Unlike Alanna, Tamora Pierce's first heroine, Kel isn't imbued with a magical power and doesn't attempt to hide her gender. Kel is a GIRL and very proud to be one, and she doesn't take short cuts. Pierce nicely depicts sequences of Kel stubbornly working hard to better herself as she stoically suffers every bead of sweat, bruise, and ache brought on by her training. Thus, the reader actually ends up cheering all the more for the approbations she does receive.
By the way, I don't mean to knock Alanna. I also enjoyed the quartet of books about her. Her achievements are what made Kel's endeavor here possible. But, yeah, when you get right down to it, Alanna has a supernatural ability while Kel remains a regular human girl. To get even more nerdy, it's kind of like comparing Superman to Batman. Anyway, if you've already read FIRST TEST, I won't have to talk hard and fast to convince you to read PAGE, or the subsequent novels. I'm in the middle of reading SQUIRE right now, myself. And that one, so far, is even marginally better than FIRST TEST and PAGE.
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