Reading Update

Super busy right now, with no opinions on anything to report. Spending late-night unwind hours re-reading YA.

Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet, which I first read about ten years ago (wow!):

1. Alanna: The First Adventure
2. In the Hand of the Goddess
3. The Woman Who Rides Like a Man
4. Lioness Rampant

And Lois Duncan's A Gift of Magic, which I read (and loved) as a kid. One of the great things about Duncan and other seventies YA masters is the way they snuck some real complexity into the family situations. The (more or less) protagonist of the book isn't always a terribly likeable character. She's both unbearably selfish, and understandably so.

I didn't really notice this back then, but in re-reading a lot of these books now, I'm noticing that the books I loved the best were inevitably the ones with the best writing (in my adult judgment.) Kids are very forgiving of bad writing, but still do appreciate good writing. Something I wish more writers for young readers would keep in mind.