There are a lot of young adult books you can’t feel good about your children reading, but Tamora Pierce’s books have a lot to like. They’re sex positive, the main character is a badass girl, and there’s a talking cat that sits in on meetings of the war council.

Alanna is a young boy who’s secretly a girl. Like Harry Potter, she’s the only one in the world who can stop evil. But while she slowly defeats a bully and a villain, she gets in fun adventures like fencing, magical healing, and trying not to swim. And where many books of this ilk don’t hold up, The Song of the Lioness series actually does.