Last year I visited the Ranger's Apprentice Day for the first time together with my younger sister who's a great fan of John Flanagan's book series. It started four years ago with one day to celebrate the series, which is hugely popular in the Dutch/Flemish speaking world. Due to the enormous popularity last year there were two days, one in the Prehistoric/Roman/Medieval museum Archeon (Alphen aan den Rijn, NL) and one in Aarschot (BE) which we visited.
This year Ranger's Apprentice Day has grown even more and it was now two days in the Archeon and another one is planned in Belgium in August. It was even more spectacular as the author had flown all the way from Australia to watch the Eurovision to attend.
The weather was wonderful (although I got sunburned) and covered in our homemade (well, my aunt made them) camouflage cloaks we got an even bigger surprise. It happened that my sister had found one of the Golden tickets (there were 50 for 2000 fans) which meant we got to go to the Meet & Greet with John Flanagan. Which was naturally awesome! My sister got the latest book of the series autographed, we all took pictures and we got complemented on our cloaks. It was, needless to say, a great experience.
In case you're wondering. 'De Grijze Jager' is the Dutch (not quite literal) translation of The Ranger's Apprentice
The rest of the day was very nice as well. We could shoot with bow and arrow, there was a knight's tournament and a lot more. It did me feel guilty for still not having finished the series. (The same happened last year, but I read perhaps one additional book). And I really like the books, that's the worst of it. And I read 200 books a year. I really hope and plan to have the rest of the series, and possibly the first books of Brotherband as well, read by this time next year. Because it looks like we'll be attending more Ranger's Apprentice Days...
Catch up on the reviews I wrote for the first books in the Ranger's Apprentice series (hopefully, more to follow soon)...
The Battle For Skandia / Oakleaf Bearers
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