Not Your Ordinary Princess Tale

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	• Princess Ben Catherine Murdock Houghton Mifflin, 2008 - 344 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Not Your Ordinary Princess Tale

On their annual visit to her grandfather's tomb, Benevolence's mother and uncle are brutally murdered and her father goes missing. Compounding her personal tragedy is the fact that Ben's uncle was the king--and his lack of children means that Ben is the sole heir to the kingdom. Still reeling from the sudden death of her beloved mother and clinging to the thin shred of hope that her father will return home, Ben is placed under the care and supervision of her aunt, Queen Sophia, now serving as the queen regent. Ben is absolutely miserable in her forced princess lessons: she hates her boring and stuffy tutor, her clammy-handed dance instructor, the pointless small talk over dinner and, most of all, the sudden reduction in her food portions. A spot of hope arrives in the form of a hidden passage that leads to a room full of magic. Suddenly, Ben has something she really wants to do and stays up late practicing magic and then sleeps her way through her daily lessons. She also finds freedom in the numerous secret passages she discovers, giving her access to the entire castle. But then a ball is held to introduce her to potential suitors and Ben decides to use her magic to flee the castle and lead a life of her own choosing. She conjures a Doppelschlaferin--a sleeping double of herself--to take her place, because her aunt doesn't seem to require a talking, thinking princess. But then Ben's plans go awry and she finds herself in the neighboring country--the same one she suspects sent the assassins which attacked her parents. When she discovers that the enemy country has found a back route for attacking her kingdom, and that that country's crown prince has been summoned to kiss the sleeping princess--really Ben's Doppelschlaferin--to wake her up and possibly win the kingdom that way--Ben has no choice but to do everything she can to get back to her castle, save her kingdom, and keep from being married to a prince she despises.

PRINCESS BEN is, to put it simply, a really, really good book. It starts with the fact that Ben is such a fun narrator. She has a wry sense of humor and its fun watching her try to master magic--which she only sometimes gets right. What's also so refreshing is that while Ben is a bit of a self-centered and selfish character at the beginning--the sole heir to a kingdom running away when the country is at the brink of war isn't the best plan--she really grows and matures as the book progresses. I've just finished another YA book featuring a princess where she fails to grow up and take responsibility up to the very end and it was very frustrating. And Ben does not get boring as she matures. Far from it. She is still as spirited as ever, especially when she is trying to protect her kingdom or verbally sparring with the enemy kingdom's crown prince, Prince Florian.

Another great aspect of PRINCESS BEN is the supporting characters. In the beginning, Ben sees everything in black and white: her aunt is cruel and demanding, the enemy country's king and crown prince are bad and her tutor is useless. And in a lesser book, this would remain true. But in PRINCESS BEN, Ben sees that these shallow impressions don't always show the whole picture. The only complaint I'd have is that I loved when Prince Florian and Ben interacted and I was disappointed that they weren't together more. This book is really about Ben and her coming of age story, but I still would have liked a little more Florian, just because they played off each other so well.

I'd highly recommend this book for YA fans. Murdock has turned what could have been a typical princess story into something far more interesting through her sharp and clever writing. Furthermore, I found it amusing that Murdock plays with the idea of fairy tales--of which this story is one, with a very active heroine--by sprinkling in allusions to classic fairy tales throughout the novel (one of Ben's suitor's complains of a pea under his mattress keeping him up all night; everyone thinks that Ben's sleeping Doppelschlaferin must be awoken with a prince's kiss, etc.).

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Witty and Elegant

I've read, loved, studied, and taught fairy tales all my life. Every three years I co-teach a graduate school fairy tale course and, since 1990, I've been doing a Cinderella unit with my fourth graders. So I'm always interested in new versions of these old tales as well as original ones. At the same time, because many of these come up short for me, I am a wary reader of them, especially those featuring feisty oppositional heroines who are too often pallid cousins of Gail Carson Levine's Ella and Patricia Wrede's Cimorene. So I was both curious and dubious as I started reading Catherine Murdock's Princess Ben. And here I am, after finishing it last night, having enjoyed it sufficiently to want to write about it at length.

So getting to the book itself, what was it that I liked so much? First of all, I was captivated immediately by the mannered writing style and voice. Murdock has really pulled off that old-fashioned first-person epistolary style and voice; it is very nicely done indeed. At first I was very conscious of this as I read (in a good way -- I was simply enjoying her sentences and vocabulary) , but once I got into the plot I stopped paying attention; I'm guessing she sustained it all the way through. For the last few years I've been listening to a lot of Dickens, Collins, and now Eliot so I'm very conscious of this old-fashioned style and it grates on me when writers try it unsuccessfully. So bravo to Murdock for pulling it off.

The characters are all very complex -- no one is totally bad or totally good; a very nice way of deepening and complicating the usual good/bad cast of characters in traditional fairy tales. I began thinking they would be stock versions or variations or opposites of the traditional types and enjoyed the way every single one of them turned out to be more nuanced than I originally thought they were. My main quibble would be with Ben's parents. They are left as single-dimensional ghosts of her memory and perhaps that is as it should be, given her circumstances, but I did feel that I wanted to know more about them, especially her mother. For a while I did wonder about Ben's gluttony, thinking Murdock was going for a large-princesses-are-lovable-too. But she went a different and original direction that I found worthwhile (and I'm not usual one for psychological meanings, but this was interesting enough for me to feel okay with it).

The plot is captivating, engaging, and kept me reading and guessing. If I were on an award committee this year I would want to consider harder the climax of the story and whether it is a bit out-of-nowhere. (Won't say more for fear of spoilage.) But since I'm not, I'll just leave it as is. It worked just fine for me.

So, all in all, a very elegantly written and satisfying literary fairy tale.

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Good book for young girls

This book was recommended in BookPage through my library. It states, "...Ben learns that 'whatever you radiate comes right back at you'-something that's central to the positive changes in her relationship with Queen Sophia, and her ultimate ability to solve problems for herself and the kingdom." Isn't this what we are looking for in our own children? I think this was a good addition to our home library. I highly recommend this book for young girls in their tween years.

Must Read!

Princess Ben is absolutely wonderful! Exceptionally well written, with good character development, smart plot twists, and very engaging story line. Thoroughly enjoyed all the tie-ins to traditional fairy tale plot lines - very cleverly done!

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The Story Siren Reviews:

Princess Ben short for Benevolence is orphaned after the assassinations of her uncle, the reining king, and her mother, her father's body is not found. As the last remaining member of royal blood, Ben is forced to move into the castle and endure her aunt, Queen Sophia. Sophia insists that Ben act like the princess she should and insists that Ben learn to dance, sew, proper penmanship, and control her appetite. She later learns these "lessons" are to make her appealing to a suitor, so that the queen may marry her off! Once Ben learns of this notion, she is anything but cooperative. The Queen, upset by Bens actions locks her away. But in her moment of despair Ben discovers a room that may be her escape from Sophia and an unwanted marriage, perhaps even provide vengeance for the death of her parents.

After reading Murdocks's other books, I was expecting a lot from Princess Ben. Not only did this book meet my expectations, it extended far beyond them! It is beautifully told in a way that only Murdock can. She is able to create such characters that you can't help but admire. The growth that Ben undergoes throughout the story only increased my admiration for her. The plot was beyond captivating! It was full of magic, adventure, and fantasy! I absolutely recommend this book! I can't wait to read more from Murdock!

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reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4

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