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Here's a story I can actually come up with a summary for because I've read it so many damn times: This series is about a girl, Alanna, who wants to become a knight. The obvious problem: she's a girl. So she disguises herself as a boy ("Alan") and thus the story begins.

Genre: uhhhh....fantasy? I guess?

I have so many favorite characters from this series. One of them is Faithful, the cat, because he's just so annoyingly logical. Another is George, the thief, because he's witty and smart and doesn't seem to let things bother him.

So my question(s) for you are, 1) What's your favorite character? So original, I know. And 2) What do you think of the strong feminist presence in this series? Tamora Pierce always has strong female protagonists. Thoughts on that?

I got my friend hooked on this series (her name is Alanna). This one was good, but I like her daughter's seires better. I guess I just like spies better than knights.

1) Faithful all the way.
2) I think that Tamora Pierce is right to write about girls. Not only does she know the ways of a female better than a male, but her books are read by a lot of young people, and giving them strong female characters to read about affects their behavior.

No that was The Immortals series. I can't recall the name of the actual series, but I do know the titles of both books. It's the Trickster's Choice and the Trickster's Queen. They were about Alianne (Alanna's daughter) and her "adventures" in the Copper Isles.

I'm noticing a bit of a trend!
1. For me, it was a toss up between Alanna, George and Myles. I loved Alanna because of how strong she was. Actually, I love all of Piece's female characters (my fave remains Sandry). George is a great character too. I love that he is sort of in a gray zone. As a thief he should fall into the bad guy category, especially when the other characters are knights-in-training. Despite that, he shows himself to be a good guy to his friends. And Myles is a favorite because he is one of the few stable parental figures. He's not lofty like the twins father or Gareth Sr. Corum teaches her, but he also is still a servant. Myles stays accecable to her, even adopting her.

Ok, enough with that question.

2. I love the powerful female characters. I am a big fantasy fan, and I can honestly say that I am a little sick of all the damsels in distress. In a lot of stories you end up with a woman who acts like an early Disney princess (Think Snow White here). So now you have delicate flowers that wait in a tower for some guy to fight the monster. If they are not this girl, then the women get placed into the witch role, the bad girl, or one of the genderless masses. Eventually it gets to be so sickening. Tamora Pierce shows that the girl does not have to be the princess or the witch.
I agree with EstroPerpetua, female characters are what Pierce knows best. I also think that she drew a lot from the changing culture of us, the young readers. Some of it comes from the womens power movement, but also look at our own background. the young readers who take up these books have been offered more self actuallizing rolemodels. To draw on Disney again, the 90's Disney princess was a lot more gung ho. Jasmine may still have needed Aladdin to save her, but she did not sit back and wait. She tried to change her life and to free herself from Jafar. But there was also Mulan later, who saved the day without needing a prince to slay the evil.

Also, these girls are more real than a lot of the damsels. I know a lot more girls with attitide than the giggily "all I want to do is clean and love" stereotype.

And on that note I will stop my rambling or this thing will turn into a thesis paper

bummer! haha Maybe check the library or something?