Summary from Goodreads:
In a magical medieval world filled with dragons, shape-shifters, and witches, a twelve-year-old hero will search for their place as an impending war threatens. A thrilling middle-grade series opener that stars a nonbinary tween and explores identity and gender amid sword fights.
My name is Callie, and I'm not a girl. I am here as Papa's squire, and I want to train as a knight.
In a world where girls learn magic and boys train as knights, twelve-year-old nonbinary Callie doesn't fit in anywhere. And you know what? That's just fine. Callie has always known exactly what they want to be, and they're not about to let a silly thing like gender rules stand in their way.
When their ex-hero dad is summoned back to the royal capital of Helston to train a hopeless crown prince as war looms, Callie lunges at the opportunity to finally prove themself worthy to Helston's great and powerful.
Except the intolerant great and powerful look at Callie and only see girl.
Trapped in Helston's rigid hierarchy, Callie discovers they aren't alone--there's Elowen, the chancellor's brilliant daughter, whose unparalleled power is being stifled; Edwyn, Elowen's twin brother, locked in a desperate fight to win his father's approval; and Willow, the crown prince who was never meant to be king.
In this start to an epic series packed with action, humor, and heart, Callie and their new friends quickly find themselves embedded in an ancient war--the only hope to defeat the dragons and witches outside the kingdom lies in first defeating the bigotry within.
Review:
I was both excited and a little nervous to read this one. Of course, I LOVED the idea of a nonbinary main character in a middle grade fantasy book about knights and magic and dragons! I guess I was a little nervous that the first representation for this would be overkill or not a great representation. I didn’t want the gender identity storyline to take such center stage so much so that kids would feel like they were being preached to. But, I also wanted this book to do justice to such an important topic. So, I guess it was a tough, but critical job for this author….
And for the most part, I think this author was very successful. I found the book hard to put down. Sure, the similarities between the fantasy world and our own were very clear, but some of what was created for this world were amazing too. It wasn’t just the societal norms of women can only do this, and men can only do that….But, also, there was one bad person who abused her magic, so therefore, magic is bad and women who do too much magic are also no good.
It’s not the first book that tackles someone different wanting to be a knight, and it definitely made me think of Tamora Pierce. This is more the Tamora Pierce book of today, though less romantic and with a little more focus on gender identity (though there isn’t zero romance in it).
Personally, it felt like the author did run out of steam a bit at the end. It did feel a little overkill at the end too. I found myself skimming at that point. Not every single character has to learn about gender identity in book 1, or be punished for not getting it right away. I think too much went down at the end of the story. And I would have been okay and thought it more believable if that was spread out more throughout the series.
I did love all the training scenes, any parts that involved learning magic, and all the character development between the friends. I found the wold building to be excellent too. I think this is the start to what will be an excellent series. I just wish book 1 ended a little earlier. Overall though, I did really enjoy this book and I can see this book helping so many kids. I was reading an ARC, and the finished book will be out in November. I give it an 8.5/10.
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