The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less:  Will, raised as a ward of the castle and having never known his parents, faces his destiny on his Choosing Day.  Hoping that he will go to fighting school, Will is surprised when the shadowy figure of Halt requests that Will join his team of Rangers, a stealthy band that polices and keeps watch over the realm.  Will takes to his training well, mastering such Ranger arts as camouflage, stealth, and of knife throwing.  As his skills mature, Will earns the respect of Halt and makes a name for himself by slaying a large wild boar in the forest.  But the a wild boar is nothing compared to the dreaded and evil Kalkara, whom the evil lord Morgarath has sent on a mission to kill the Rangers.

My Take:  I was suitably impressed by the opening shot of this now 12 part series.  Flanagan gets right the balance between character development and delivering a suitable level of excitement for younger readers.  I was expecting that the entire book would be spent on Will’s training and his efforts to please Halt, with the obvious attending disappointments until then end, when, through some personal breakthrough, Will finally earns the respect of his master.  I was pleased that this was not the narrative arc, or at least not the entirety of it, and that, by the final quarter of the book, Flanagan has ushered us to the larger stage where we are meeting the Kalkara of Morgarath.

One Interesting Note About the Author:  Flanagan conceived these books in a series of short stories that he wrote for his son to interest him in reading.