PDPPPosse Resource Club: Tamora Pierce

Sandry's Book by Tamora Pierce

I would suggest reading any of Pierce's books, she has created beautiful, elaborate and magical worlds full of heroines and heroes. She's best known for her strong female heroine characters.

The Circle of Magic and Circle Opens Quartets are 2 series that take place in the same magical world with the same characters and has a culminating book The Will of the Empress as well. They follow 4 kids with very different stories who, because of circumstances beyond their control, come together to form a family. These would be great for a middle school age group. I created a novel/author study unit for grade 5 based on the four Circle of Magic books. There's a unit plan and 21 lessons plus worksheets etc. at this address.

Here's a bit about the characters:

Sandrilene fa Toren is a good-natured noble who finds herself at Winding Circle Temple when her parents are killed by an epidemic. She loves to embroider and create things using needle and thread and has a disregard for the station or hierarchy of society.

Trisana Chandler is a stubborn girl very aware of the hierarchy in society. She stands up for herself and for animals. Strange things happen when she gets angry or upset. This has been what has caused her family to entrust her to the care of Winding Circle Temple.

Daja Kisubo is a hated trader whose whole family has died in a storm at sea. She was the only survivor and is taken to Winding Circle Temple to be taken care of until she becomes an adult. She’s a very strong and proud person with a strong belief in her trader Gods.

Briar Moss is a street urchin from Sotat who’s been caught stealing for the 3^rd time in his life. He’s given a second chance at life when he’s offered life at Winding Circle Temple in Emelan instead of life on the docks doing hard labour.

Circle Opens Quartet

And a culminating book with the same characters years later,
The Will of the Empress:

There's also one more book that follows Briar's time in Yangjin (between the Circle opens books and the Will of the Empress book)
Melting Stones

Battle Magic
The book follows Pierce's characters Briar Moss, Evumeimei Dingzai(nicknamed Evvy), and Rosethorn after the events of her 2001 novel Street Magic. The action is set in the fictional countries of Gyongxe and Yanjing as they become embroiled in war. All events take place two years before Pierce's previously published Emelan universe novels The Will of the Empress and Melting Stones.