Meet Princess Cimorene--a princess who refuses to be proper. She is everything a princess is not supposed to be: headstrong, tomboyish, smart... And bored.
So bored that she runs away to live with a dragon. And not just any dragon, but Kazul—one of the most powerful and dangerous dragons around. Of course, Cimorene has a way of hooking up with dangerous characters, and soon she's coping with a witch, a jinn, a death-dealing talking bird, a stone prince, and some very oily wizards.
Notes from our friend Kathy:
While they are written as clean YA fantasy, we had the audios from the library when my youngest boys were about 4 and 9. They listened on repeat, mostly while doing kitchen chores. The kids thought they were HYSTERICAL.
I do, too, bit I did get a little tired of the ensemble audio cast on repeat. Now, however, I wish I had bought the Audio CDs, since they loved those cassettes so much. (Pretty sure all my kids have their own set of books now.) Big favorites here!
I am pretty conservative about content for the younger set, and I was ok with ages 4-5 and up. There's enough fun intrigue and laugh out loud humor to keep the attention of a younger audience. My kids LOVED Morwen's cats.
The whole series is a gentle poke at fairy tale stereotypes by featuring strong female leads - but that doesn't take anything AWAY from King Mendenbar, whom we meet in the second ? book. The women aren't well grounded at the expense of the men. There are both strong men and strong women, and silly men and silly women, there are heroes and villains of all kinds, including dragons.
However, for people who only want the dragons to be villains (and I do understand the objection,) this series will cause offense. Dragons here are another intelligent, magical race with admirable characters and treacherous ones. They make treaties and have convocations to discuss rules and points of protocol.
All in all, I *personally* find this a delightful series for all ages.
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