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THE EXTRA-ORDINARY PRINCESS by Carolyn Q.  Ebbitt

THE EXTRA-ORDINARY PRINCESS

by Carolyn Q. Ebbitt

Pub Date: Aug. 1st, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59990-340-8
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Amelia is the youngest of four princesses, one of the White Queens. Her sisters have graces and talents, but Amelia is quite, quite ordinary and complains about it at every opportunity. When plague strikes, killing the king and queen, the princesses’ sinister great-uncle steps in as regent, quickly transforming Amelia’s older sisters into a tree and a pair of swans and paving the way for Amelia to find her own gifts. Little unfolds organically in this story: Things happen willy-nilly, and whenever something magical is needed, it drops in conveniently. Huge swaths of the history of the kingdom and the background of the White Queens and their evil stepbrother, Count Raven, are told through expository dialogue. Contemporary voices peek through this faux fairyland, the geography of which has as little logical consistency as the magic. For all this, Amelia is a sympathetic character with whom tweens waiting to come into their own can identify. Readers will appreciate her loving relationships with parents, godmother, sisters and stalwart friend. Alas, however, in the end it’s all too ordinary. (Fantasy. 8-12)