Alanna: The First Adventure

Kind of a fun fantasy, presented simply and straightforwardly and thus probably good for younger readers (I'm guessing around 10-11ish?). Alanna likes to fight. Her brother (whose name I have ALREADY FORGOTTEN) wants to do magic stuff. They live in Your Standard High Fantasy land with prepackaged Tolkien derivative Euro-ness. So, it's kinda like an Age of Chivalry thing - the main thrust of the book is Alanna cross-dressing as a boy so she can become a knight! She goes to... uh, knight's school? Hogwarts for Knights. There, she becomes a page (a freshman?), looking up to the squires (sophomores/juniors?). There is some bullying (mostly she bullies this jerk kid). There is a teenage thief king, a la Rufio from Hook.

I mean, it was fine. I didn't love it. It reads very easily, so you finish it quickly, but I feel like giving this to a kid is like, okay, meh, here you go, girl power to you. Inoffensive, but also milquetoast.