Moral Courage Today

Tamora Pierce was born in 1954, on December 13th. She moved a lot throughout her childhood. She is the oldest of her siblings. Her uncle was the first to give her books of her own. She loved reading them and making up her own stories. She read and reread books until they fell apart. In sixth grade, her father recommended that she start writing down the stories that she made up. Pierce started to write fan fictions from Star Trek and other science fiction shows and books.

In seventh grade, her English teacher introduced her to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tamora Pierce found a great love in reading science fictions and fantasy books. These stories and ideas made their way into her writing. She often smashed all of the different stories together into her own fan fictions. Writing these stories helped her through her parents’ divorce.

In tenth grade, Tamora Pierce hit a road block. She had every writer’s worst nightmare: writer’s block. She still managed the required writing for school but seemingly lost the ability to write creative stories. She had been planning on becoming a writer but because of her writer’s block, she was forced to look into other options. She decided she would study to become a social worker for teenagers. Pierce chose this because she wanted to help teens who had or have rough lives, like her own tough life.

Pierce went to college at Penn State. The summer before her junior year she wrote an original short story. She had finally beaten her writer’s block. She soon started selling her stories and articles. Her senior year, she took a fiction writing course. The teacher of her fiction writing class suggested that she write her a novel about her childhood. Tamora Pierce only managed five pages on her childhood before deciding that writing about her childhood wasn’t what she wanted to do.

Tamora Pierce had read many stories in which the main character and savior was male. “I tried to write the kind of thing I was reading, with one difference: the books I loved were missing teenaged girl warriors. I couldn't understand this lapse of attention on the part of the writers I loved, so until I could talk them into correcting this small problem, I wrote about those girls, the fearless, bold, athletic creatures that I was not, but wanted so badly to be,” Tamora wrote in her biography. She noted this inequality and rather than let it slide, she decided to write her own books with teenaged girls being the heroes. In her first book, Alanna: The First Adventure, her main character Alanna disguised herself as a boy to become a knight. I believe this book was the perfect way to introduce the inequality of female heroes. Despite reactions from the public, she continued to write books about teenage girl heroes. The books took a while to catch on but they eventually did around 1995. Her moral courage continued to inspire her to write more books. She now has over twenty books published, along with many short stories. She continues to write stories with female heroes and all so updates a blog. In her blog she often discusses wrongdoings of the media or politics.

I first encountered her books in sixth grade at my schools library. I didn’t normally like to read ‘old’ books but my friend had recommended them. The first series I read was The Immortals. I fell in love with the idea of girl heroes. I had only read one other series with girls as heroes. After finishing The Immortals quartet, I started searching for more of her books in my school library and in my public library. I have read nearly all of the series that she has published. Her books are all so unique in fact that they are interlinked and characters overlap different series. I borrowed The Song of Lioness quartet from my friend but The Immortals quartet remains my favorite. I am a girl and I grew up wrestling with boys, so when I heard people say girls aren’t as strong as boys, I was shocked. I am glad that Tamora Pierce is spreading the word of equality. I had the fortunate chance to meet her and have my book signed. It was fun to listen to her talk about upcoming books and answer questions. She signed the third page of my book, which displayed the title, “Girls rule!”

Her stories have inspired millions of girls all over the world. They have been printed in several languages, including English, German, Swedish, and Danish (Pierce cover). She all so has audio books in English and Dutch. Her message is worldwide: Girls are equal.