Ever since that fateful summer trip, I’ve always traveled with more books than I could read. I was about 15, and decided I needed to bring along only the first two books of the new series I was reading, Ranger’s Apprentice. Little did I know how enthralled I’d be, how quickly I’d read them, and how long the rest of the trip would seem until I got home to the other installments.
As a rather reserved and risk-averse person, I found John Flanagan’s prose and characters thrilling, a wonderful escape into a world of immensely brave and resourceful warriors. It was a world of adventure and skill easy to become immersed in and hard to emerge from. Decidedly in the fantasy camp (though no fairies or magic are involved), the story is set in a fictionalized European/British Isles–type land. The medieval world is populated by kings, peasants, sea raiders, knights, and . . . Rangers.
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