Product Description

Protector of the Small #3

At the age of 14 and standing five foot ten, Keladry of Mindelan is a squire. A squire serves and learns from a seasoned knight for four years, then faces a final test. That final test is the Ordeal, which takes place in a magical room called the Chamber. There, a squire encounters the parts of him- or herself that the Chamber deems the most difficult to face–be they fears, failings, or unrepented wicked deeds. Does Kel have what it takes to survive the Ordeal?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42812 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-27
• Released on: 2002-08-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 432 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780679889199
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Customer Reviews

An adult fan of preteen fiction...how did this happen???
First I need to defend the fact that I'm 23 and writing this review. I just want to point out that tamora pierce was around when I was a tween and a teen. Her books are so well written, I've just kept buying them.

I would first like to commend pierce on writing a much longer book than usual. Her thanks in the authors note go out to JK Rowlings (and if you're unfamiliar with Rowlings I must ask if you've been living in a cave) who wrote and succeeded with a 700+ page book for kids. I have long thought that childrens (well, tween and teen books) were much too short. We need to give kids the credit due them and realize that they can sit down and read these longer books.

Squire is the third book in the protector of the small series. Pierces protagonist is Kel (or Keladry) the first non-magic aided girl to want to become a knight of tortall (the only other being Alanna of Treborn--see her 4 book series for more info) and the struggles she faces because of it. Pierce deftly handles Kel's early teen years and honestly and frankly deals with Kel having a crush and then moving into kissing boys. She has Kel have a frank conversation about sex with her mother which I commend Pierce for again.

There have been criticisms of the almost triangle in this book. I liked it...Kel is a normal girl. She likes one boy but can't help but notice and have a crush on another...ladies don't you remember being 12-15? I do...and it still occasionally happens...I'm in a relationship, not blind.

Pierce writes her characters very well. They are well developed, (although cleon could be more developed and I hope he will be in the next book) and have personalities that are both believable and likable. I have read many adult writers who could not accomplish this, a major reason why I will continue to dart into the young readers section at my local bookstore and buy the new books as they arrive.

"Squire" review by 13-year-old reader
Well, first of all, I might be a bit biased, because the "Protector of the Small" series is my favorite out of all the Tamora Pierce series, but I'll just say now that I definitely recommend "Squire." In this book, Keladry of Mindelan, who has been the first openly female page at the Tortallan court for four years (since the age of 10) goes through four years of being a squire before becoming a full knight at 18. She becomes the squire of Alanna's friend Raoul of Goldenlake; faces down her old foe Joren of Stone Mountain; negotiates with the King and Queen to change laws that go against the rights of commoners such as Kel's maid Lalasa, who was wronged by Joren; falls in and out of love; and, finally, encounters the Chamber of the Ordeal. But...well, I suppose I will talk about individual things in the book. I absolutely love and admire Kel's determined, down-to-earth yet idealistic personality. However, in this latest installment, other characters' personalities became underdeveloped. For example, we barely ever see her old friends Neal, Owen, Merric and the others, and when we do, they are sort of skimmed over. I think Ms. Pierce was trying to concentrate on Kel's growth, but it was disappointing. I especially missed Neal and Owen!!! Kel has a romance with Cleon in this book. I thought that was really sweet, but I wondered...why him?!? He'd never been a fully developed character like Neal, and so it was sort of confusing why Kel was so attracted to him and why she fell in love with him after being in love with Neal (who was really more her type!) for years. I guess Ms. Pierce is doing the "well, nothing turns out the way we expect it" thing, and that's admirable... but still, it's as if Kel feels obligated to love Cleon because he loves her. Yet Kel's feelings through all of that seem realistic - the way she is taken aback and confused at first. I loved the parts about the nobles from Yaman (the islands where Kel lived for six years, from her very early childhood), which is based on Japan. (The Yamani nobles are in Tortall to introduce Princess Shinkokami or "Shinko," Kel's childhood friend, who is to wed Crown Prince Roald of Tortall.) I recently went to Japan, and the attitude of the Yamanis is much like that I observed in many Japanese. The language and names are extremely accurate, and Kel's relationship with the Yamanis ("Am I like them anymore?") is profound. Finally, I think that the way Tamora Pierce has improved her imagining of the Chamber of the Ordeal since her "Alanna" days is flabbergasting. In the Alanna books, even though the Chamber was supposed to be scary, it was hard to see just how exactly it was scary from Ms. Pierce's narrative. In "Squire," however, we experience first the visions Kel has through her squire years as she dares the Chamber by placing her hands on its doors, and then the actual experience, which brings up fears Kel thought were long since dead and buried. It also gives her a vision of a heap of dead children and a suspicious-looking man; those will no doubt come into play in the next book. It's all so well done! Well, that's about it. I think that the biggest pull of the "Protector of the Small" series is Kel's personality. In the end of "Squire," Alanna is talking with Kel. She says that though she (Alanna) is a hero, she had the Goddess and powerful magic to help her along. Therefore, the average girl can't really identify with Alanna and her accomplishments. "But you, bless you," says Alanna to Kel, "you are real." Girls in Tortall - and Tamora Pierce fans - can look up to Kel as one of them, as someone ordinary who became extraordinary. And that, of course, is a great accomplishment for Tamora Pierce in itself.

Better than the last one!
This is the most reacent book in Tamora Pierce's Protector of the small series. Now Kel is a squire and she has a new training master, one who is much more lenient on her. She can carry her Yamani glaive and he teaches new jousting skills. The Yamani princess arrives, Kel finds a baby Griffin and she meets up with all of her old friends again, including Neal of Queenscove. In short, because I know no one likes to read long reviews and to fit everything in this would be a LONG review, this is an excelent book from a renound author, who gets better with each book she writes.