The Ordinary Princess

by M. M. Kaye

This is one of my all time favorite stories. It is a story that takes a fairy tale setting but twists it for a somewhat more realistic setting. The story revolves around the seventh daughter of a kingdom. All of the fairies are invited to her christening. The last one blesses the Princess Amethyst to be ordinary. From that moment on the Princess is just called Amy and is ordinary. Though she may be ordinary in appearance her character and determination are not. This book is fairly short and a quick read and the whole idea of a kitchen maid and a man of all work being happy as they are makes me smile. The characters don’t develop a lot throughout the story but since this is more of a fairy tale I wasn’t bothered by the fact that there is little change with the characters from beginning to end.

One of the other reasons why I love this book is because M.M. Kaye drew all of the pictures herself. The artwork just makes the story come alive, especially the picture that shows the man of all work sitting on the table eating ice cream. It makes me happy just thinking about it. My mother read this book to me when I was younger and I hope to be able to read it to my children. This book was out of print for a while and difficult to find but was reprinted in 2002.