There just aren't enough books about girls with swords. As a girl who always wanted a sword, I was used to feeling somewhat shortchanged when I looked in the juvenile fantasy section.
Then I discovered Robin McKinley's Newbury Honor book, The Blue Sword. Set in the fictional country of Damar, the story concerns Harry "don't call me Angharad" Crewe, an orphaned teenager who goes to live with her brother on the remote desert military outpost called Istan. Once there, Harry begins to learn of the Hillfolk, the mysterious native people who are rumored to practice magic. Harry learns the truth behind the rumors when she is kidnapped by the golden-eyed, magic-wielding king of the Hillfolk, Corlath.
Harry seems, in her own mind, like an unlikely target for kidnapping. Like many teenaged girls, she feels awkward, clumsy, and too tall. Uncomfortable in Istan society, a tiresome combination of military dinners and balls, Harry feels a strange attraction to the desert and hills she sees outside the window of her bedroom in the embassy. This attraction, however, doesn't explain why Corlath brings her into those hills, where she finds herself just as uncomfortable, especially since she doesn't know the Hillfolk language. She gradually makes a place for herself, becoming--much to her shock and with the help of her teacher, Mathin--a "lady hero," complete with a sword and war stallion.
Reassuring to those of us who dream of becoming a lady hero while being incapable of walking across the living room without tripping, Harry makes plenty of mistakes and takes plenty of tumbles along the way. She also makes plenty of friends that help her, among them a secretive mage, a porridge-loving hunting cat, and what is possibly the ghost of a legendary queen. Oh-and the titular sword, which seems to have a mind of its--I mean, her--own.
McKinley is the master of two things: setting and characterization. The culture of the Hillfolk is wonderfully, painstakingly depicted, from the food to the clothing to the language. When Harry is galloping across the desert on her war stallion, you seem to feel the wind in your hair and grit in your teeth. The battle scenes actually make you feel tired and sore. Seriously. I checked for bruises.
Best of all, Harry, Corlath, Mathin, and the other characters who populate the kingdom of Damar seem like real people. How real do they seem? Put it this way-I was sad at the end of The Blue Sword. Not because it has a particularly sad ending, but because I actually wanted to meet those characters. I wanted to be able to kick back, drink a cup of malak (think Hillfolk coffee), and discuss life. Somewhere between Harry's arrival in Istan and the climactic battle that assures her spot in Hillfolk legend, I felt like I had made some friends and I didn't want our adventures to end. I consoled myself by rereading The Blue Sword roughly 347 times. You can imagine my happiness when I discovered that McKinley had written another book about the Blue Sword and Damar, entitled The Hero and the Crown.
It's practically paradise for a girl who's always wanted a sword.
Click here to buy this book, or read more about it at Amazon.com: The Blue Sword
There just aren't enough books about girls with swords. As a girl who always wanted a sword, I was used to feeling somewhat shortchanged when I looked in the juvenile fantasy section.