Weekly Book Post: The Song of the Lioness

I don't have any pictures of books this week, but you'll forgive me a boring picture-less post, right?  It's like reading a book instead of watching a multimedia presentation. :)

An interesting article on the benefits of reading was posted to Huffington.  One of the claims is that reading literature may help you "read" people as well.  But not pop-fiction, it claims.  Hmmm.


But that article really has nothing to do with what I really sat down to write about, which is the current audiobook obsession going on in my household.

The Song of the Lioness Quartet  are four books by author Tamora Pierce, which I loved, loved, loved when I was a kid (I think I was about 9 or 10 years old when I read them).  This year I enjoyed reading them out loud to my kids, and there is nothing quite as sweet as having your children join you in loving something that you loved as a kid.

This is the story of Alanna, a girl living in a magical medieval type world, who dreams of being a knight and having great adventures (even though only boys can be knights).  She wants it so much that she and her twin brother switch places when it is time for them to go off to school, and she lives disguised as a boy in the palace, training to become a knight someday.

She doesn't just manage to meet the challenge - she is actually a great swords(wo)man and becomes the right hand (wo)man to the Prince.  She has to learn to balance her femininity and warrior-identity, she has to learn to love, and she has to find her place in the world.  There is an arch-villian to overcome, as well.

The first book covers her time as a page, and the second book covers her time as a squire culminating in her being revealed as a girl after she earns her knighthood.  The third book is her time as a wandering knight and spent mastering her magic, and then in the fourth book she quests and then returns to court as King's Champion.

Pierce says the books are for teens and adults, and there are mature themes (Alanna gets to have three love interests in her life, and although there are no explicit "sex scenes", you do know she's having sex.  And then there is, of course, violence, and some dark magic.)  However, my two kids were just fine with it.

So we read them earlier this year, and then they discovered that the library had them on audio CD.  That has been almost the last I saw of my daughter this week, as she spent days in her room just listening to the books straight through.  So fun!