Daja gets some recognition from Guardian readers as she makes the list of Ten Empowering Female Characters in Children’s Books! Regarding her impact, Hannah Catteral says:

She has a strong sense of justice and hard work, and is always a champion for her friends. She apprentices to an older blacksmith, Frostpine, who teaches her skilled and magical metalwork, and eventually becomes a master of her craft.

In later books, as she grows older, she also falls in love with a woman, and this is treated as perfectly normal. Having grown up with Daja, her friends and their adventures, this was absolutely wonderful and unprecedented for childrens’ series at the time.