I’ve loved Alanna the Lioness for over 20 years. Her story shaped me into the reader I am today. This graphic novel beautifully adapts the first book in the series in a way that will enchant long-time fans, and will have new readers coming back for more. 10/10.

I received an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is the story of a set of siblings who aren't happy with their assigned futures based on gender roles. So they swap. Alanna decided to pretend to be a boy and come a knight. She's never really liked being feminine and the expectations that come with it, so she sneaks away. This story is fantastic and inspired people, especially young readers, to examine gender roles and how it affects their choices and who they are. Pair this with magic, knights, and a cat...

Whenever your favorite book gets reimagined as a comic, It's always a little scary. And with a book that touches on some complex feelings and ideas about gender expression, there's a way to do it right. I personally think this story was adapted fantastically. It follows the story pretty well while making some minor adjustments. My only real complaint is that there couldn't be a hair more story depth and character building with some of Alanna's friends. The ARC that I received did not have color, but the art style was fantastic. I'm excited to pick up a finished copy to add to my Tamora Pierce Collection!

The graphic novel adaptation of "Song of the Lioness, Book 1: Alanna" by Tamora Pierce is a wonderful adaptation of the book. I was completely engaged with the comic and loved the artwork!

The graphic novel is about a girl named Alanna, who trades places with her brother so that she can become a night. Alanna has to disguise herself as a boy because women are not allowed to become knights in the kingdom that she lives in. The graphic novel is about her journey through womanhood and training to become a knight.

I love this graphic novel! It is a fast-paced and adventurous coming of age story! I hope that they continue the series!

Thank you, NetGalley and Abrams Fanfare, for sending me an ARC of this graphic novel! The graphic novel is available now!

Well drawn and written, solid start to a fantasy series. In a few places I could feel that this was an adaptation of a novel. Some of the feelings and actions develop too fast with not enough time and experience behind them. However, the main points were there, and I'm happy to read the sequel when it arrives.

This was beautifully illustrated and a gorgeous read!

I have not read the original novel but am keen to now having finished this.

I enjoyed the plot and magical/fantasy aspects of the story. It was a great read overall.

It’ll be an excellent recommendation to give in my bookstore, I am always looking for young graphic novels that stand out and will be great for a broad range of kids.

As a lifelong fan of Tamora Pierce, I was so excited to revisit Alanna's story in graphic novel format. I really enjoyed this adaptation and thought the art was so lovely. This is a great way to introduce new readers (or old like me!) to Tamora Pierce and immerse themselves in the land of Tortall. Alanna defies gender stereotypes and takes her brother's place to go train to be a knight of Tortall while pretending to be a boy. She struggles through rigorous training from her instructors, as well as bullying from other pages and squires - watching how she meets each challenge is a delight. I highly recommend this adaptation and more readers need to get into Tamora Pierce!

I've been a huge fan of all of Tamora Pierce's books since I was a teenager and she is still an author that I will order/pre order anything she writes. As a newcomer to the graphic novel world I was intrigued to see how a book I love (to the point I can almost quote bits of) would work in this format.

I loved the book, even allowing for the fact that there were only samples of the colour spreads in this advance copy. Of course the characters aren't going to look quite how I have imagined them for the last 30+ years but that didn't matter - the essence of the book was there and unchanged and it was interesting to see what could be removed without changing (or harming) the plot.

I really hope that this new format brings a new audience to the books because I don't feel that they have dated very much at all and they were always fairly inclusive and progressive in ideas.

Tamora Pierce's YA fantasy classic has been adapted into a graphic novel for the first time. Alanna disguises herself as a boy to become a knight in the kingdom of Tortall. She works hard and learns sword fighting, tilting, and even sorcery. Her new friends include Prince Jonathan, heir to the throne, George Cooper, a thief in the city, and Miles of Olau, her teacher and scholarly mentor. I recommend this book for anyone 8+ who enjoys high fantasy adventure and genuine characters.

This is the first instalment of the Song of the Lioness graphic novel. It lives up to all the hype. The art is wonderful, and the issues are relatable.

Alanna has always wanted to be a knight. But her father has decided that her twin brother will be a knight and she will be a Lady. Her brother Thom has only ever wanted to be a sorcerer. So Alanna cuts off her hair, disguises herself as a boy, and starts going by Alan so she can be a Knight and her brother can be a sorcerer. Thus, the story begins.

Song of the Lioness is a graphic novelization that covers most of Alanna: The First Adventure. Alanna disguises herself as a boy to pursue her dream of knighthood. She makes friends, deals with bullies, grapples with her gender and development, and starts to use her Gift. It is a fairly faithful adaptation, with some of the relationships, like that with George, limited or flattened. The art style is flowing and fits the story well. I'm looking forward to seeing this completed.

Song of the Lioness, Book 1: Alanna: A Graphic Novel Adaptation (Kindle Edition)
by Tamora Pierce
The story of a young girl attempting page school to learn to be a knight. She struggles against bullies, and magic to find friendship and solutions to the problems of the kingdom.
The images are soft and romantic.

I absolutely adored this!

I approached this not having read the original books. Alanna and her adventure were brand new to me and I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that the cover was gorgeous and I was feeling the itch for a new graphic novel. While I have read both graphic novels and mangas all my life, I am very picky. It takes a lot for me to not only enjoy the story and remember it beyond the last page, but also, if I don't enjoy the art, I will quit reading pretty quickly.

Song of the Lioness Graphic Novel has everything. Fun characters with an especially relatable protagonist, great pacing, wonderful art and, all in all, such an overall fun journey for Book One. I admit I was a bit concerned that I'd lose interest during the lull of training, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find out I never hit that lull. The book hit the perfect balance of keeping things moving forward, while exploring the characters and digging deeper into them making the whole experience realistic and believable.

While the original books, and the graphic novel, target younger audiences (I would say YA), as an adult who'd never even read the original series, I found myself looking forward to reading more pages and feeling somewhat sad when I reached the end. I really cannot wait for the next book!

This is an unfinished copy of the book but I will give my thoughts on what I have seen. I'm sure the dialogue will be just fine once it is added, but for now the art is looking good. In all honesty it's nothing that blows me away but luckily it isn't NOT to my liking either. It has this specific book adaption vibe to it that I find hard to describe but easy to spot.

Having said all of that, I do believe that fans of this series will be more than happy to pick up this graphic novel adaptation of this beloved series, especially since I have already had a customer ask to pre-order it! I will also be more than happy to stock it on my shelves, as though I only discovered this series in the past year, I found it incredibly endearing.

Thank you to NetGalley and ABRAMS Kids for the E-ARC!

Thank you NetGalley and ABRAMS Kids for the e-ARC of this book.

I was really excited to see a graphic novel adaptation of one of my favorite books of all time. I've probably read the Song of the Lioness quartet 11 or so times since middle school. This was a great adaptation and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product. The ARC I read was still very much a rough draft, but the art is very good and the writing adapted the story very well. All of the major plot points were included and the story was left unchanged (which is a good thing because the story is perfect). Reading this graphic novel makes me want to go back and read the series again. My hope is that this graphic novel will create a new generation of fans and that after they read this, they will go and pick up all of the other books sett in the world of Tortall.

I don't think I'm really the audience of this book, but my overall take is that while it's a perfectly competent adaptation, it adds nothing to the original prose version of Alanna: The First Adventure. Most of the dialogue is taken word-for-word from what I remember, so it's just... a shorter version, with pictures? Maybe I'll feel differently when I see the full-color version. I'm happy that this exists as an introduction to Tortall for kids who wouldn't read a full prose novel, but Alanna has always been by FAR the least child-friendly of the Tortall subseries. I guess you couldn't really start with Daine, though.

I’ve loved Tamora Pierce since I was a teenager so I was excited to see the Song of the Lioness quartet was being adapted in graphic novels. I have to say they’ve done a fantastic job of it and Alanna’s story was the perfect place to start.

The illustrations were fantastic, I can’t wait to get a finished copy and see them all in colour, as my arc was in black and white. The adaptation of the story was really good too. I could really see the characters coming through.

I can’t wait for the next book to see this version of Alanna’s story continue. It’s been a long time since I read the books, so I’m enjoying having my memory refreshed in a whole new format!

It was so wonderful returning to the land of Tortall! I loved this series when I was in middle school, and this adaptation brought me back.

Overall, this graphic adaptation did justice to the original novel-- in so many ways. The illustrations were beautiful and even though it has been many years since I've read Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness, this adaptation felt true to what I remembered. It felt true to the original. The illustrations also captured the setting really well.

Within each chapter, I thought the panels were well-planned and organized so that the story was easy to follow . The way they were laid out also helped emphasize certain moments or emotions. However, I thought the pacing could have been stronger. It was unclear how much time past between chapters and some of the flashbacks felt like an afterthought.

Additionally, I thought there could have been stronger character development -- especially between characters. We don't see Alanna interact with Jon all that much, but in the end, he wants her as his squire and the depth of that moment wasn't fully realized because there was no depth throughout the book. Otherwise, this was really well done. I look forward to including it in my classroom and it'll be a great way to introduce the genre of fantasy to students who might be interested.

It was kind of hard to determine a single star rating for this, because the story holds up as well as it did when I first read it 20 years ago, but I'm not really loving how it was adapted. The art is fine, and gets noticeably excellent in Act 3 (the ARC I was gifted is in black and white, but I'd love to see Persopolis and the Black City done up in full color as I understand the final product will be), but the choice to eliminate all exposition in favor of all text on the page being purely dialogue doesn't do the story justice in my opinion. It makes for some very clunky dialogue at times, and I was really relying on my memory of many past readings of this book to fill in a lot of gaps, so I fear anyone new to the story will be totally adrift.

The lack of emotional connection or development in all of her relationships felt particularly jarring. Francis gets name-dropped once and his image shows up on page maybe twice before we're supposed to believe him as a major emotional pivot point. In the first half it feels like we see more of her interacting with Gary on any sort of emotional level that we do with Jon or George, who are far more important relationships. George at least eventually gets his due on the page, but I felt very disconnected from Jon the whole time. They barely speak, then he's suddenly requesting her on his deathbed. They barely speak some more, and then he's dramatically monologuing about how close they are. It does do a pretty good job of showing you Alanna's personality, and also setting up Duke Roger's character.

Unless it is the absolute only way you are going to get this story in front of a particular kid, I'd recommend going for the original book rather than this adaptation. But I do HIGHLY recommend the book.

Original Story: 5/5
Graphic Novel: 3/5

Tropes:
- Middle grade fantasy
- Knights in training
- Girl disguised as a boy
- Powerful magic
- Brewing conspiracies

Thank you to NetGalley and ABRAMS Kids for the chance to relive an old favorite.

This story was packed with determination, magic, and adventure. Alanna defies expectations to train as a knight, facing challenges with wit and courage. The artwork is really beautiful, enhancing its emotional depth and action. I haven’t read the original novel, but after experiencing this adaptation, I’d be interested to dive into Pierce’s world even further.

Thank you Netgalley, ABRAMS Kids, and Tamora Pierce for sending me this advanced review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Advance Readers received a black and white copy with unfinalized artwork. My review will reflect this.

Overall this is a STUNNING book, even in the greyscale version. The illustrations are very well drawn, with lots of detail. You can see and feel all the emotions the characters go through.

The story is very true to the book, with It is a very faithful rendition and brought back so many memories from reading the original book in my childhood. There were some minor things left out that didn't affect the story in any way.

I think this is a great book for middle school aged readers, and it teaches compassion, empathy, and how to stay true to yourself, even when you have to hide aspects of your identity.