Book Review #2 - Dealing with Dragons

Book Review #2 - Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Cover

Scholastic Cover

This book is the first in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles series. Although the language is easy to read for younger readers, the themes are more teen-oriented. Princess Cimorene hates being a princess and despises the lessons that she must take, such as etiquette. Consequently, she engages in some very unprincess-like lessons, such as fencing, cooking, Latin and magic. When her parents take her to a neighbouring kingdom and try to get her married to the prince, Cimorene, with some advice from a talking frog, decides to run away. She ends up working as a princess for the dragon Kazul and adventures ensue. With assistance from her fellow princess-in-captivity, Alianora, Kazul the dragon, Morwen the witch and the stone prince (who has a long story), she manages to defeat the villains. The book takes fairy tale conventions and turns them upside down, so it is best that the reader has been exposed to several fairy tale conventions in order to get the most from this book. From the very beginning to the very end, this book is about being true to oneself. This book is a fun read and is widely-appealing. There are two different covers available, one from the original publishing by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and the other from Scholastic. This book is available in audio format as well. Recommended for everyone.

All images taken from chapters.ca.