Protectors...

When I as younger, I used to read a lot of serious novels that were quite mature for my age at that time. It is quite funny that nowadays, I enjoy reading a lot of young adult novels and comics/graphic novels. Proof that my brain is turning to mush probably. Anyway, the last two (or rather five) that I read are about people who help and stand up for the oppressed...


Green Lantern Corps Vol. 1 (To Be A Lantern) gathers the first 6 issues of the new Green Lantern Corps comic series. It tells the different tragedies and triumphs of members of the Corps as they try to patrol and protect their assigned sectors of the universe. Each comic issue tells several parts of stories that are eventually brought to a close after a few issues, a common strategy to keep the reader interested and buy the next issue and therefore complete the story. We get to see that Lanterns do have personal lives and that that the Corps has as much camaradarie among it's members (and not just military-like order).


Protector of the Small is a quartet of books (First Test, Page, Squire, and Lady Knight) written by Tamora Pierce. It is sort of a sequel to The Immortals quartet that I have previously read and written about because events in this series occur several years after the Immortal War. (Chronologically, The Song of the Lioness quartet started it all and it was followed by The Immortals quartet.)
Keladry of Mindelan, or Kel, wants to become a Lady Knight just like her idol Alanna, The Lioness. The series covers her struggles to achieve her dream, starting from becoming a probationary page at age 10 and ending as a full-pledged knight at 18. Pierce's previous characters make cameos in this series, and she again writes as simply and clearly as before. A good story that is interspersed with action, humor, and drama makes this very entertaining light reading. Kel makes for a very endearing character as Alanna or Daine, but has lots of uniqueness just the same.