Wild Outlaw Girls: Tales of Rowan Hood

For girls who love adventure stories with a strong female character, Nancy Springer's Rowan Hood series has that and more. The first book, Rowan Hood: Outlaw Girl of Sherwood Forest begins with thirteen-year-old Rosemary, who finds her mother Celandine, a half-aelfin healer, murdered and her house burned by a local lord who feared her magical powers. Ro fears falling under the control of this evil master and flees to the nearby Sherwood Forest. Believing her mother's story that she is the daughter of Robin Hood, she takes the name Rowan and begins a search for her father.

Along her way Rowan disguises herself as a boy and is joined by a huge half-wolf dog she names Tykell (the Arrow) who can catch arrows in flight and is given a powerful bow and flint-tipped arrows by the aelfin folk who watch over her journey. Rowan comes to feel the healing powers given by her mother as she is joined by Lionel, a huge, clumsy, and timid minstrel with an amazing voice, and Ettarde, a princess whom the two help escape from an arranged marriage. When Robin Hood is captured in Nottingham, the three manage to free him from the dungeon before he is executed by the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham. When they return to the forest, Rowan reveals to Robin that she is his daughter, and she is welcomed into the company of his band. Rowan comes to love Robin as her father, but chooses to live with her own band of friends in her own Rowan Wood.

In the second book of the series, Lionclaw Lionel confronts his own heartless father Roderick Lionclaw when he is captured by Robin Hood. Timid Lionel finds that he has all the courage he needs when Rowan is caught in a "man trap" set by the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Other books in the series include Outlaw Princess of Sherwood, Wild Boy: A Tale of Rowan Hood, and Rowan Hood Returns. In this "Final Chapter" Rowan learns the identities of her mother's murderers and with her band sets out on a journey of retribution. Rowan finds that her dark mission of revenge almost destroys her magical connection with her aelfin kindred, turning her into a cripple, but in her forgiveness for one of her mother's slayers, she herself is healed and her powers and calling are restored.

This series is so tautly and skillfully written that the pages seem to turn themselves, and the reader wants to begin the next sequel as soon as one volume in closed. Along with fast-paced suspense and adventure, there is humor and realistic interaction between the varied characters which make up Rowan Hood's band of teenagers. All are involved in a search for the meaning of their relationship with their fathers, some kind and some cruel, and this theme gives depth and meaning to this exciting medieval series.