Thursday, September 8, 2011

Old Maids at Fifteen: The Dragon Princess

The Dragon Princess
I've seen E.D. Baker's Frog Princess series in the elementary school library for several years now, but never got around to reading one despite several recommendations from various kids.  So when I hit the B shelves on my Read the Library Quest, I grabbed one, but due to their popularity I had to get a late book in the series, The Dragon Princess (Tales of the Frog Princess), which apparently covers the second generation of princesses.

The setting is a sunny magic kingdom, with cheerful princes and princesses all over, including a peppy vampire princess who spends most of her time as a bat.  Our heroine, Millie, worries that she'll never find true love and is doomed to a life of loneliness and misery, although neither I nor her mother can take her that seriously since she's not yet fifteen.  On the other hand, her habit of transforming into a dragon when she's angry does make things a bit dicey, especially since her parents want to keep that info on the q.t.

When Millie lets her bullying grandmother get her goat, the secret is out.  Her parents will be most upset, since the last thing they said before abandoning her with the cranky royalty and her annoying friends were to avoid getting upset.  So it's quest time, which means hanging out with bat friend, another prince, and a two-headed troll.  Everything is light and fun, making this an easy book to zip through, and the ending even deepened things a bit without getting annoyingly didactic -- Millie must embrace her inner fire to learn to control her dragon nature.  Also, dragons have more fun.  I wouldn't mind reading more of Baker's books, and I bet my niece would enjoy these.

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