Eight Princesses and a Magic Mirror

These tales are enchanting in both their realness and their whimsy.

As the book closes, the enchantress asks the magic mirror to tell her what it learned about being an excellent princess. Its reply is that they are “brave and fierce and loyal, with big dreams, and even bigger hearts, and such a thirst for the world.” In short, they are “excellent people.”

The point here is obviously an antidote to the glitter-and-big-hair trope of the pop-culture princess, but the illustrator does throw a sop to princess enthusiasts with her generous use of pink.

"What makes a princess excellent?" an enchantress ponders when she is asked to be godmother to a royal princess. When her enchanted mirror cannot give her a satisfactory answer, she shrinks it down to compact size. She then sends it out into the world to be her eyes and ears as it observes princesses across lands and centuries, in order to decide on the right gift for the newborn. As the mirror travels, it is lost, found, and both treasured and ignored for many years by eight different princesses. There is Heloise, who uses the magic in the mirror to become a great healer and save her dear sister's life; Laila, who bravely saves her father's kingdom from an enemy's attack; and Saoirse, who discovers her true talent is collecting stories for future generations. Each princess possesses inner strength and tenacity, refuting the notion that princesses must be merely fair and obedient. There are through lines connecting each tale, and when the mirror finally returns to the enchantress, it relates all that it has seen. It informs the enchantress that it is not through titles or being gifted by others that true princesses emerge; it is integrity, dedication, and self-awareness. Even readers who eschew fairy tales will find adventure and sweet surprise in these tales of royals who rebel against the stereotypes of their position. Prominent throughout the stories are Corry's whimsical color illustrations. The fanciful drawings bring characters and landscape to life, and they are a delightful accent to the tales. VERDICT Readers will find these stories of brave, determined young ladies inspirational as well as engaging.—Carol Connor, Cincinnati Public Schools

Filled with varied expressions of what it means to excel, culturally diverse fairy tale imaginings by Farrant (The Children of Castle Rock) pair with Corry's naïf-style illustrations to present a series of episodic stories bound together by a single object. When an enchantress employs her magic mirror to discern, for her goddaughter's benefit, the ways to become an "excellent princess," the mirror—made pocket-size—visits young women in various locales and eras, all of whom are people who get things done. Princess Héloïse undertakes a forest quest to save her sickly sister, Princess Tica must decide how to handle a beloved crocodile, and Princess Abayome's world is upended by her father's new wife. From Russian royalty fallen on hard times to a young activist living in a concrete apartment building, each must identify what makes her unique and use those traits to overcome her obstacles. Joyful retellings of time-honored fairy tales to inspire and challenge a new generation.