ALIA WAKING

A girl comes of age in a not-quite-realized fantasy world. Alia and her friends want nothing more thing to be accepted by the kenteens, the warrior women of the tribe. Whenever she can sneak away from the women’s work of her chores, Alia fights mock battles in the woods, in the hopes that the warrior women will see and admire her. When she and her best friend, Kay, find and capture some Beechians—enemies of the tribe—they are sure that they have secured their place among the kenteens. But Alia discovers something is very wrong. The enemy fighters are merely children, and the leader of Alia’s tribe is treating them strangely. Dangerous secrets threaten the future of the tribe. Alia will have to choose between her lifelong dream of becoming a warrior and what she knows is right. There’s a possibility here for an intriguing sequel, though thin characterizations and oddly inconsistent gender roles leave this debut's potential unfulfilled. (Fiction. 10-13)