Growing up in Tortall 

— in which I return to one of my favorite childhood authors —

When I became a sixth grader and first stepped into my middle school, a wondrous thing happened. I discovered that the squat, red-bricked building with square-maze corridors contained its very own library. So. Many. Books.

Eventually, I noticed several titles by an author whose name I have been mispronouncing as Tamora Pierce right up until two weeks ago. (It’s Tamora, by the way.)

Should I get one? It was a tug of war between the part of me that judged a book by its cover (right), and the part that judged it by the title. Alanna: The First Adventure didn’t sound nearly dramatic enough. But…there was a picture of a horse and a glowy main character there too.

Picking that book up might have been the best reading decision I’ve ever made. It took me into the fantasy lands of Tortall and marked the beginning of over a decade of my hopeless (and happy) obsession with the fantasy genre. Continue reading →