This book picks up right were Dragonsong left off. Menolly arrives at Harper Hall on the back of a bronze dragon, with the Masterharper himself as her traveling companion. The whole thing is more than she could have ever dreamed, but then comes the hard part: making a place for herself at Harper Hall. The Masterharper said that girls could be harpers, but part of her still doubts him and worries that she's only getting a warm welcome because of her fire lizards.

This was another nostalgia reread. Of all the Pern books, this is the one I've reread the most, and not just because I adore Elizabeth Malczynski Littman's cover art. I love fantasy school stories, and that's basically what Dragonsinger is (although the series is technically sci-fi, if you handed this particular book to someone unfamiliar with the series as a whole, they would almost certainly classify it as fantasy). There are no dangerous villains or races against time, just Menolly being tested and then taught by various Masters, making friends and dealing with bullies, and trying to figure out where she fits in.

The entire first third of the book was devoted to Menolly's first day at Harper Hall, and the number of characters introduced was dizzying. I was struck by the realization that, although McCaffrey didn't describe most of the characters in detail, their personalities were so vivid that I felt like I could picture them perfectly anyway.

The last time I played an instrument was in elementary school, and I never practiced enough or paid enough attention to be very good at it. Even if I couldn't always follow the specifics of what Menolly or the Masters talked about, I never felt lost. I enjoyed Menolly's encounters with the various Masters, particularly Master Domick, whose compositions enthralled her. One thing I would have liked to have seen, though, was more of Menolly interacting with apprentices her own age. She spent most of the book having great conversations with various adults at Harper Hall, but she only spent much time with one apprentice, Piemur. For a school story, Dragonsinger didn't have much in the way of Menolly attending actual classes.

Another thing I'd liked to have seen was other female apprentices. Menolly met, and briefly lived with, several female students, but they were there because their parents paid for them to be there, not because they had any actual talent. They were also primarily mean to Menolly. Only one of them eventually became her friend, but, like the other girls, she wasn't very musically talented. Considering how adamant Robinton had been that girls could be harpers too, I'd have expected a few other reasonably skilled female apprentices at Harper Hall.

Not only was Menolly the only female apprentice, she was also massively talented. I had completely forgotten how short of a time span the book covered, only about a week or so, so the events at the end came as a bit of a shock. In all my previous rereads, I don't think it ever occurred to me how odd it was that

So yeah, this book had some issues, but I still loved it. I loved that Menolly went from a place where she was punished, even beaten, for her love of music to a place where that same love was celebrated and encouraged. I loved that she took on the Masters' tests and challenges and managed to impress even the ones who seemed biased against her. This book was 100% a fantasy about finding that perfect place where your contributions matter and you truly belong, and it still worked excellently for me on that level, despite its problems.

Additional Comments:

I'm still not sure how I feel about the bits with Camo, one of the few on-page mentally handicapped characters in the Pern series. On the one hand, Menolly, Silvina, and Piemur treated him kindly. On the other hand, some of Menolly's thoughts about him bugged me. For example: "Silvina was just a kind, thoughtful person: look how she treated dull-witted Camo. She was patience itself with his inadequacy." (17) She also thinks of him as a "numbwit" (186).

Rating Note:

Part of me feels like I should give this a 4.5-star rating, due to the various problems I mentioned. But darn it, it still works so well for me overall, so I gave it an extra half star for its long-term appeal.

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

(Bridges, 2009)

Note: The extraordinary true story of Ruby Bridges, the first African-American child to integrate a New Orleans school — now with simple text for young readers!In 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges walked through an angry crowd and into a school where she changed history.This is the true story of an extraordinary little girl who helped shape our country when she became the first African-American to attend an all-white school in New Orleans. With simple text and historical photographs, this easy reader explores an amazing moment in history and the courage of a young girl who stayed strong in the face of racism.

Thirteen-year-old Talia is a member of the Holderkin, a puritanical and patriarchal group of people in the country of Valdemar. Although reading is considered an unwomanly activity, Talia loves to read and secretly dreams of becoming a Herald, or at least going to live with them. All she knows about them is whatever she's been able to figure out from books: they're kind and noble, they keep the peace in Valdemar, and they ride Companions, gorgeous and intelligent white horses. When the Elders tell Talia that it's time for her to be married, she runs away and accidentally stumbles upon one of the Companions she has dreamed about for so long. He doesn't have a Herald with him, so she figures she'll take him back to where he belongs and hopefully convince someone to give her a job. So begins Talia's new life as a Herald trainee.

This book has been a comfort read for me for almost 20 years now. I'll warn you now, there are many layers of love and nostalgia in play here, and I can't even vaguely review this like it's my first time through.

I have a fondness for school stories and for stories in which a mistreated child finds a welcoming and loving new family. Arrows of the Queen fits both of those categories. A good chunk of the book is devoted to Talia adjusting to her new life and classes, learning to trust people and make friends, and dealing with school-related problems. She's shy and sweet and not entirely convinced that she deserves others' love and affection. When several of the Blues (students at the Collegium who aren't Bardic, Healers, or Heraldic) begin bullying her, she doesn't tell anyone, because her past experiences with her family taught her that other people would probably believe her bullies before they'd believe her.

Lackey's writing tends to lack subtlety and paint a very black-and-white picture of the world. Although readers were told that Heralds are human and therefore not perfect 100% of the time, there was very little evidence of that. None of Talia's bullies were Herald trainees, and all the Heralds and Herald trainees were welcoming and kind – pretty much the only thing keeping Talia from making a bunch of friends right from the start was her own fear of exposing too much of herself. There were a few lesbian characters in the book and, again, readers were told that not all Heralds were accepting of this and kept their distance, as though being attracted to the same sex was an illness you could catch, but there was no actual evidence of this in the way anyone behaved on-page. Everyone was kind and accepting.

I suppose this could be viewed as one of the book's weaknesses, but, to be honest, it was nice to read something in which “good” and “bad” were fairly easy to identify and nearly everyone was kind and friendly. I think it's part of the reason why this book is a comfort read for me – bad stuff happens, but for the most part this story is a warm, fluffy blanket of protection. I enjoyed seeing Talia slowly make friends and become more self-confident. Although there were definitely villains (in one instance, they came close to killing Talia), most of them weren't around enough to even have names.

There was a bit of a darker storyline involving attempts to steal the throne, although Talia tended to be so wrapped up in school and figuring out what she needed to learn in order to become a useful Monarch's Own Herald that she was rarely directly involved in any of that. At one point, she and another Herald trainee actively investigated one aspect of the situation, only to hand everything over to an adult Herald when they realized it was too much for them to handle. Later, Talia became accidentally involved in another aspect of the situation while practicing using her empathic abilities – she didn't hear the full story and the importance of her own part in it until later on. Basically, the political aspects of this book involved lots of instances of adults doing stuff way, way in the background, with Talia's path occasionally intersecting with theirs. I found the “school story” aspects to be much more interesting and appealing than the political aspects.

All in all, I enjoyed this book just as much this time around as the other dozen or so times I've read it. Yes, it has its flaws, but somehow it manages to consistently make me happy. I'm a sucker for friendly characters, a fantasy school, and magical companion animals.

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

At school, Kyouko Hori is perfect and popular. She has great grades, she looks gorgeous, and everyone wants to spend time with her. Izumi Miyamura, on the other hand, looks like a gloomy geek. Then one day Hori and Miyamura find out each other's secrets: both of them are very different outside of school. The reason why Hori can never go out with her friends after school is because her parents work all the time and she's responsible for taking care of her brother and all the housework. Outside of school, she never wears makeup and barely bothers to do her hair. And Miyamura is secretly tattooed and pierced.

My gold standard for “students who are different at school than they are at home” manga is Kare Kano, in which the two main characters basically wear perfect masks as school, for different reasons (Yukino because she thrives on praise, and Arima because he feels he needs to somehow repay his adoptive parents for their affection).

By comparison, Horimiya was kind of a disappointment, since neither Hori nor Miyamura (I'm going to refer to them both by their surnames) seemed to have very good reasons for wanting to keep their secrets. I could understand Hori's situation the best – it probably felt nice to be viewed as effortlessly beautiful and perfect by her fellow classmates, and she probably worried that she might lose their affection if she was suddenly less than perfect. Still, it was a little odd that she hadn't at least told her best female friend her secret.

Miyamura, on the other hand, was a mystery. At one point, someone asked him why he'd even bothered to get all those piercings and tattoos if he was just going to hide them. His response? “You know how sometimes you just get it done on a whim...?” Nine piercings and a bunch of tattoos seem like a bit more than a whim. Miyamura was actually less embarrassed to have people think he was on his period (a spur-of-the-moment excuse for not bathing with the other boys during a school trip) than he was at the thought that others might find out he had tattoos and piercings.

At the moment, the best I can come up with is that Miyamura seems to be very shy and wants very badly to fade into the background for some reason. At the same time, he seems to be very lonely. Hopefully Miyamura's motivations are explored more later on.

The premise is so flimsy that I'm a little surprised that this volume worked as well for me as it did. It helped that I liked Daisuke Hagiwara's artwork, but the thing that really carried this series was the adorableness that was Miyamura (and Miyamura + Hori). Miyamura was sweet, gentle, awkward, and a bit clueless. He enjoyed getting to be around Hori and her little brother all the time, but he was also a bit baffled by the relationship developing between him and Hori. Outside of school, they were friends who were completely comfortable with each other, with hints of possible romance on the horizon. At school, they were completely different, to the point that people were starting to notice and wonder about super-popular Hori talking to gloomy Miyamura more often than usual.

This is the kind of series that could quickly fall flat on its face, but so far I'm charmed enough by Miyamura and Hori that I'm willing to read on. It'll be interesting to see where HERO takes things. It's only the first volume, and already one classmate has learned Miyamura's secret, but not Hori's, and one classmate knows Miyamura both in and out of school but doesn't realize they're the same person. Volume 2 could get messy.

Extras:

There's a one-and-a-half page artist's afterword, a three-page bonus comic featuring Myamura (a tiny Miyamura with cat ears), and some translation notes (which are nearly useless and could have included a lot more).

Rating Note:

I debated whether to give this 3.5 or 4 stars. In the end, I gave it 4 stars because it made me laugh loud enough that I probably annoyed my neighbors, and also because I loved Miyamura.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)