Favorite Book #2

The Hero and the Crown

by Robin McKinley

I was assigned to read The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley in the fifth grade and no one wanted to read it (including me). I was in that phase where I didn’t want to read anything assigned to me especially because I’d hated all of the previously assigned books. Everyone complained; the boys didn’t want to read a book with a girl protagonist and the girls were turned off by the cover on the left.

But once I started reading I realized its story was similar to many of the books I had been staying up late to read in the middle of the night. Aerin’s voice carried me throughout the entire book through royal lineage, a destiny, dragons, knights, mystery, and love.

The Hero and the Crown is one of those classic fantasy novels where the princess is itching to escape the castle and goes against everything that is expected of her.

From childhood, Aerin had been haunted by the story of her mother-a "witchwoman" who enspelled the king and then died in childbirth, leaving behind a newborn daughter and an heirless land. Left to her own devices, Aerin grew up wild, doing her best to live up to her reputation as the disappointment of the realm. But little did the young princess know the long-dormant powers of her mother would wield their own destiny, and leave Aerin with a duty to her scornful homeland that she couldn't refuse (Amazon).