Ranger's Apprentice

The Ranger's Apprentice is a series of children's novels that follow the adventures of an Orphan boy turned Ranger, Will, throughout a land none to similar to England in Medieval times, the ruins of Gorlan is the first novel in the series. The novel starts off with will wanting to be picked to become a Knight but gets disappointed with the Barron of the castles decision to give him an apprenticeship with the Ranger of the castle, Halt. The novel then follows Will's progress in his training to become a Ranger and slowly he begins to realise that this was the job he was meant to do. When he and Halt head to the annual Rangers gathering they run into trouble and have to save the King and the Baron from a monster.

The novel is written in a way that really connects to teenagers, speaking from experience, as Will really wanted to be an apprentice Knight but found out that he was more suited to be a Ranger. This would connect with a lot of teenagers as they would not know what they wanted as a career let alone what they wanted from their lives. 

One of the themes that Flanagan covers in this novel is Friendship. He covers friendship through how Will and his closest friends are all orphans and that Wills best friend turns out to be a another orphan who he hated and used to fight with. This could be used in a classroom to show students that going through something as traumatic as saving someone from a wild beast can make the worst of enemies bury the hatchet and become the best of friends.