Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede

Princess Cimorene is a very different sort of princess. All of her sisters turned out just fine: they’re all blue eyed blondes without a brain between them. But somehow Cimorene turned out tall, dark haired, and very very stubborn. Bored out of her mind learning princessly duties such as etiquette, dancing, and embroidery, Cimorene learns fencing, cooking, magic, juggling, latin, and economics. Each set of lessons is stopped by her parents when they find out, so she never gets to study anything truly interesting. In horror she discovers her parents have arranged a marriage between herself and Prince Therandil—a singularly boring prince who is coincidentally not too bright. Taking advice from a helpful frog, Cimorene runs away to become a princess for the dragon Kazul. Here she is needed for her former oddities: Kazul loves cherries jubilee, needs her latin library catalogued, and her treasure sorted. But all these pesky knights keep showing up to rescue her, and the wizards are definitely becoming a problem. What’s a girl to do? If she’s Cimorene, you can be sure she’ll do something!

In this, the first book of the Enchanted Forest series, Patricia Wrede takes the classic fairy tales and rearranges them into a singularly different story. All the old clichés are there: princesses, dragons, knights in shiny (or not-so-shiny) armor, magic, wizards etc. But the way Wrede uses these classic ideas truly reinvents the fairy tale. Cimorene, for example, is no fainting damsel in distress. At last she’s found a place where she can be extremely happy, and all these bothersome knights keep trying to take her away. This book is just thoroughly enjoyable, with a highly entertaining writing style. Completely strange ideas are juxtaposed for comic effect: and it makes perfect sense.

I first read these books when I was in sixth grade. They have never gotten old, or boring, or just not funny. They are a children’s to young adult series, but that only means that more people can enjoy them at the same time. I doubt if I would have ever noticed this if I had not read them back to back, but Patricia Wrede and Piers Anthony seem to share a bit of the same writing style. Wrede is a bit more serious (but not much), and there are certain similarities in their style. If you enjoy one, it is quite possible you will enjoy the other. I give it a big smile rating, and you should too.