It's a shame, really, that The Ordinary Princess is generally marketed to young girls. Not that grade school girls aren't a natural audience for a book about a princess who is, as it happens, quite normal and ordinary (hooray!), but I'm afraid that such marketing might alienate another natural audience for this book. Don't laugh (OK, go ahead and laugh), but if you enjoy P.G. Wodehouse and are looking for a fresh dose of British wit and whimsy, mixed with a dose of razor-sharp perceptiveness when it comes to human shortcomings, you might check out this title. I don't want to oversell it here - just like its heroine it makes no pretense of being more than it is (nor, for that matter, is it quite the sustained over-the-top madness you tend to find with Wodehouse). But it's a nice, light, sometimes wickedly funny read all the same, in a very British way, and although it is quite different from the Jeeves and Wooster books, I can't help but recommend it to fans of that series. It's just too much fun, really.
Here's the part that explains where this story veers off from the usual run of princess stories:
She raised her twisty coral stick and waved it three times over the cradle of the seventh princess. "My child," said the Fairy Crustacea, "I am going to give you something that will probably bring you more happiness than all these fal-lals and fripperies put together. You shall be Ordinary!"
And nodding her head briskly the Fairy Crustacea turned away and hobbled rapidly out of the throne room, leaning on her twisty coral stick and leaving a faint smell of seaweed and a damp track on the polished floor behind her.
For quite a minute after she had gone there was a stunned silence in the red and gold throne room of the palace...
The Ordinary Princess, by M.M. Kaye, is available new in a reprint paperback edition from Penguin Group, ISBN 0142300853.
Addition: For more from Barnes & Noble, click on the book cover.
The Ordinary Princess
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