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Title: Squire (Protector of the Small, No. 3)
ISBN: 0679889167
Author:
Tamora Pierce
Publicate Date: 2001-05-22
Publish: 2001-05-22
List Price: $15.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $1.71
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.43
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1: Kel is now a squire....for Lord Raoul!
Kel is now a squire and is worried that nobody will pick her because she's female. But...dispite the fact that Keladry desperatly wanted Lady Alanna to ask she is still overjoyed when Lord Raoul of Goldenlake whom can sometimes be known as the Giant Killer asks Kel. Raoul is very high ranked and one of Lady Knight Alanna's best friends so...why is he picking Kel? Because he thinks she's good.
Since Lord Raoul is the leader of the Kings Own Keladry gets to go with him all the time on missions and goes into various battles. Though she is living her dreams she is still nervous...the Chamber of the Ordeal is coming up quick and Kel still has to push aside her secret romance.
Read 'Squire'. It's a wonderful book but it would be best to read 'First Test' and 'Page' first.
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2: amazing
I love this series, the books are amazing. Read Terrier or the Lioness series by the same author if you like.
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3: Solid, but not quite satisfying.
If you're reading these reviews, you've either read the previous two books, or are still trying to see if you should. Either way, this book is a very good read on its own, and a decent further look at our heroine Kel.
Sadly, I found it not to the standards of the first two. Firstly, the posting Kel recieves is 'tailor-made' to groom her for further adventures. Nothing as serious as the climax of Page ever happens, which makes it difficult for her character to grow in this installment. Her difficulties now are in reconciling her crushes (in regards to, I'll remind readers of how many boys you were 'in love with' at age 14 through 18, and how many of those crushes lasted past summer vacation, let alone an entire year). She also learns the quiet skill of picking her battles, and there is a sadly anti-climactic result for her long-standing enemy. Fitting, but still anti-climactic.
The world is strangely light-hearted, despite onrushing wartime, Kel is strangely capable in a world she's never directly experienced, and ALL of the men she works with accept her without reservations after only a few months of her arrival. This all contrasts with the mood that Pierce cultivated in the first two installments, and I was strangely sad to see it shattered so easily. This almost felt like an intrusion, or a "rest period" for the character.
The mood changes again towards the end, where the build-up to Lady Knight begins, re-establishing the familiar tension faced by our soon-to-be Lady Knight.
**As I have for previous books, here is my 'cautious parent' warning. This book deals frankly with crushes, and the possible results of acting on them. The character deals with it in a 'family-appropriate' way, by asking her mother, but the simple inclusion of this "big talk" and the other references to kissing and passionate emotions may upset some parents. Please Please Please, if you think this will be a concern for you, or if your child is delicate or easily frightened, please be aware that this book is directed more towards OLDER pre-teens. The character is 18 at the end of the book, and considered an adult from the age of 14 when the book begins.
Finally, the climax scene, while not as challenging for the character, deals with magic and necromancy, and this may disturb some readers (or their parents). Be warned - read it first!
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4: This is the best of the Protector of the Small quartet so far...
Several SPOILERS here:
Welcome back to the medieval and enchanted realm of Tortall. SQUIRE is the third and penultimate book in the Protector of the Small series and is the richest, most textured effort yet by Tamora Pierce in her chronicles of the feisty and determined Keladry of Mindelan, or Kel, as her friends fondly call her. A lot of the added gravitas in this book has to do with the fact that Kel is older (she's fourteen now and stands at a muscular five foot ten in height as the book begins). Thus, she finds her world opening up even wider - and her training becomes even more rigorous as it expands to include a more sweeping education as to the true definition of a knight. Too, Kel becomes more involved in the doings of the royal court, becoming responsible, in fact, for possibly effecting a positive change to a long-standing Tortallan policy. SQUIRE covers the four year span of Kel's squirehood, and her experiences here, under the capable tutelage of Sir Raoul, ably sets her up for her grim adventures in the series's finale, LADY KNIGHT.
The plot: As a squire, Kel must now enter into a four-year servitude with a seasoned knight. But the book starts with some time having passed after Kel had attained the rank of squire and with nary a knight having yet chosen her as his squire. Kel had harbored a hope that her heroine Alanna the Lioness would select her, but that ultimately became a forlorn hope. Languishing in despair while stoically striving to not show it, Kel is shocked but delighted when Sir Raoul, the unorthodox Knight Commander of the King's Own guard, asks her to be his squire.
The next four years prove to be a fruitful and educational time for Kel. Raoul turns out to be the perfect master and instructor. With him and his command, the King's Own, Kel travels the breadth of Tortall on various missions to keep the kingdom safe and sound, whether it's rescue operations, capturing bandits, succoring devastated villages, besting terrifying mechanical monsters, or fighting against the encroaching soldiers of Scanra. Her animal friends, time and again, give Raoul and company the decided edge as Kel's sparrows prove to be uncanny scouts, while her ugly dog Jump and her ill-tempered horse Peachblossom make ferocious warriors. Now, add to that menagerie a nasty baby griffin, with a liking for fingers, whom Kel rescues in a deadly battle with a renegade centaur.
On her journeys, she makes new friends (including Dom, the handsome cousin of her best friend, Neal) and impresses even more people with her dedication as she continues to perfect her warrior skills. As part of her training, she takes up jousting (or "flying lessons," as she calls it, because Raoul keeps bouncing her out of the saddle). And, as is her nature, she maintains her championship of those who are unable to protect themselves. She even goes as far as to challenge the king when she deems the penalty for a criminal too lenient. To protect a put upon standard bearer, she challenges the offender to a jousting match, never mind that the offender is a full blown knight. Continually, she puts a lie to her naysayers, most of whom consist of kingdom conservatives. Kel even finds time to indulge in an enthusiastic, if chaste, romance.
Past characters return, especially Kel's closest friends: Neal, Merric, Cleon, and Owen. Even past heroines in their own quartet series, Alanna the Lioness and Daine the Wildmage, appear, if briefly. And, with two years of Kel's squirehood dedicated to the Great Progress - a grand parade throughout Tortall, meant to show the heir's future Yamani wife to the people of the realm - Kel manages to renew acquaintances with old Yamani friends, as well as with Prince Roald, who had been in her training school. Unfortunately, she also meets up again with the bullying Squire Joren, who had been her nemesis in the prior books...
But even Squire Joren pales in comparison to Kel's final challenge. Her final test to achieve knighthood is the Ordeal, which involves a passage of time spent in the dreaded Chamber. The Chamber, which is mystically sentient, calls forth one's worst failings, weaknesses, or past misdeeds and forces one to face them. Squires before, in their time in the Chamber, had gone mad and had even died. It doesn't bode well for Kel's confidence that, even years before her alloted time in the Chamber, she'd summoned the courage on several occasions to touch the Chamber's door and each time had received disastrous images laying out a bleak future for her and her loved ones. But, with war looming in the horizon against the kingdom of Scanra and with Kel having been granted a vision of a diabolical future foe, a lady knight just might be what a beleaguered kingdom needs most...
This is the best book in this quartet so far, with FIRST TEST and PAGE already being very good reads As a bonus, we finally learn the respective identities of the villain who had hired the two scoundrels to kidnap Kel's maid, Lalasa (as chronicled in PAGE), and, on a more pleasant note, of Kel's unknown benefactor. Kel is such a strong and rootable character that the pages flew under my fingers, I really couldn't wait to find out what would happen to her. Part of what I like about Keladry is that even though she is now starting to change the men's pervasive prejudice against women becoming knights and even though she's well on her way to garnering a certain rep as Raoul's promising protege, on the inside, we still get to see Kel's fears and uncertainties. The readers are privy to Kel's vulnerabilities, which act as a humanizing counterbalance to her "perfect" qualities. Tamora Pierce's strength is in her deceptively simple narrative style, which serves to make her books accessible to anyone, young or old. SQUIRE is very highly recommended, although it's suggested that the prior two books should be read first. Hope this helped.
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5: Best of 'Protector Of The Small'!
This is absulutley the best of the 'Protector of the Small' quartet! Probably because Roaul is in this book and he is a fave character of mine.
Kelandry of Mindelin is now a squire and is very worried about who's going to pick her to be their squire. She is hoping that the legendary Lioness will pick her but it isn't working as she had hoped. Finally Sir Raoul of Goldenlake picks her and she gladly excepts. She then travels with the kings guard (for that is what Sir Raoul does).
This is a wonderful adventure full of action, romance, and is a blast to read! Tamora Pierce created a wonderful story and I hope that everyone reading this review will give it a go because I know for a fact that you'll enjoy all the hard work Pierce has put into this! Read SQUIRE!
-Hannah M.
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