From that day on, Princess Amethyst becomes an ordinary baby who grows up to be an ordinary girl.

Of course the king and queen are horrified, but there’s nothing to be done. But, when one of her fairy godmothers, Old Crustacea, comes to the christening to give her blessing and sees all the perfect presents everyone has given her and little Princess Amethyst’s six perfect older sisters, she decides, “I am going to give you something that will probably bring you more happiness than all these fal-lals and fripperies put together. Indeed, when Princess Amethyst Alexandra Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne is born, she is a beautiful baby who never cries and who has perfect blonde curls and blue eyes. Everyone knows that seventh princesses are always the luckiest and the most beautiful. Kaye, 1986.Įveryone is excited when a seventh princess is born in the kingdom of Phantasmorania. But instead of escaping the fairy tale, she finds the place where she fits in it: a charming, cheering friendship that blossoms into romance frolics in the woods with a pet squirrel and a pet crow and a nursery rhyme that you know is a prophecy, even before the young lovers find out.The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Shall they lock Amy in a tower and hire a dragon to lay waste to the countryside, until a suitable prince comes along to slay the dragon and win her hand in marriage? Not if Amy has anything to say about it.Īnd say something she does: Goodbye. Dressed as a commoner, Amy goes out to escape from the fairy tale in which she has no hope of living up to her role. She has seen all her older sisters married off, and now her royal parents are starting to worry about what to do with her.

Thanks to a crusty fairys christening curse (or is it a gift?), Amy has freckles, a snub nose, mousy hair, and a distressing tendency to prefer climbing trees to wearing brocaded gowns. Cheerful, brave, healthy, and graceful to be sure, but quite ordinary! But it has just this one twist: the Princess Amy is ordinary.

Have you ever noticed that in fairy tales, the princess is almost always blonde, blue-eyed, porcelain-doll pretty, and loaded with demure feminine accomplishments like embroidery and music? Has this pattern started to get a bit dull? Well, look no further than the present book, written (and illustrated), by a book illustrator who thought the same thing.ĭug out of a drawer and published years after it was written, it is a fairy tale with all the classic elements a youngest-of-seven-princesses who steals away from home, disguises herself as a peasant girl, gets a job as a kitchen maid in a kings castle, befriends little animals, and wins the young kings heart.

The ordinary princess