I concur. I just finished re-reading Bloodhound last night. Her villians have redeeming qualities and are not uniformly in any age bracket. While her heroes are mostly teens, they are helped and aided by people in all age brackets. Some of them dye their hair or wear odd clothing, but it is just another feature of them.

Tamora Pierce completely rocks (and it completely makes me sad to wait until October for Mastiff to come out).