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Squire is a really fun and thoughtful historical fiction adventure inspired by the Ottoman Empire's conquest of Jordan, even if the ending is a bit too pat. The art is great, and I'd gladly read another installment.

WHY did I wait so long to read this?! Girls with swords is one of my favorite things. 😍 My little Tamora Pierce-loving middle school self is infatuated with becoming a knight. I really loved the world these authors created and for the bigger picture they pointed out that is often left out of stories like these.

I first learned about this book from an article on either Tor or BookRiot celebrating the legacy of Tamora Pierce's Alanna quartet. While the author rightfully celebrated the multifaceted portrayal of feminism that Alanna presents, they did acknowledge that not all the books age well, especially the colonialist aspects of book 3, and offered this 2022 graphic novel as an alternative that more directly confronts that theme. +

Considering I read like 9 graphic novels I‘m going to just review 3 (mostly because I already returned them to the library and didn‘t take all their pictures). In Squire, Aiza joins the army but hides her ethnicity to fit in. Her journey is one of growth, but this book also addresses colonialism and its problems, which I loved the most. We see higher ups manipulate in the name of the “greater good” and “unity,” but is it, really?

For one of my reading challenges, I have to read a graphic novel. I picked these up from my library, but does it count if I read them so fast?? Should I be picking one that I takes longer and is deeper than the rest? I read all of these (and a couple more), but I feel like it‘s wrong to say that I read more than 6 books in two days because I‘m so used to novels.

A snow day (ice day?) meant I had time to squeeze one more read into January.
Recommended to me by @alysonimagines through bookclub.
Aiza joins the military, dreaming of becoming a squire and maybe someday a knight, of travel and glory.
She makes friends and enjoys her training and education. Then starts to see signs of prejudice and corruption.
Beautiful amazing art and great story by two Arab American women.

Good but not great. I appreciated the anti-colonialism, but most of the story felt like a Tamora Pierce retread, and it's hard to top Tamora Pierce. #yalit #graphicnovel

Loved this GN that reimagines a squire training story with an awareness of what it is the young people are training to do. The Said dedication made me smile.

Incredible coming of age story fighting colonialism and imperialism. Aiza is from a group frowned upon as being “less.” Mulan feel here. She wants to be a squire so bad, to be a hero, that she looses herself along the way. Her story enlightens the atrocity of war, a never ending cycle of lies. Amazing book showing an alternative Ottoman Empire and Arabs as their own knights of old. Beautiful colors and storyboard. Really liked Doruk

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This feels topical.

I've been looking forward to this library book for so long! Been a sucker for female-squire stories ever since Tamora Pierce, I guess.

A thrilling, thought-provoking YA fantasy graphic novel adventure set in alternate history Jordan with an Ottoman Empire aesthetic. The MC is a teen from a despised, subjugated group of people within the empire. Her dream is to become a knight & attain full citizenship. Issues include nationalism, imperialism & the realities of war. Wonderful #ownvoices representation in this collaboration between two very talented Arab American comics creators.

So there‘s this Knight called Layla the Night Lily, and she‘s AMAZING. They say when she would finish a battle, the field would erupt into flowers the very next day.

(Great landscape art in this graphic novel, btw. Also, aren‘t the curvy lines leading to the speech balloons a nice touch?)

What a size difference between these two characters! (I‘ve scribbled out the speech bubbles to avoid spoilers.)

This graphic young adult fantasy follows Aiza, a young member of the oppressed Ornu people in the once-great Bayt-Sajji Empire, who aspires to be a knight, to gain both glory and full citizenship. Volunteering as a recruit, Aiza hides her identity, forges friendships, gains an unlikely mentor, proves herself as a warrior, and, in a brilliant reckoning with colonization and imperialism, slowly begins to question what exactly she‘s fighting for.

Believing that joining the army offers her a path to acceptance and success, a young girl does just that only to discover that nothing is as it seems and that she must choose between her heritage & the empire she fights for. Delving into identity, war, colonization, & nationalism, this YA graphic novel tackles some important themes. On sale 2/1/22.