Gr 2-4
Princess Daisy attends the Royal Palace Academy for the Preparation for Perfect Princesses and learns the arts of creative cooking, talking to dragons, ball-gown design, and gracefully descending a staircase. On the dreaded day of meeting a real live dragon, mean Princess Floreen trips Daisy, sending her straight into the baby dragon and scaring him onto the roof. Daisy uses her burnt cupcakes to lure the little fellow back down to safety. Large type and a fast-paced story make this an easy read for children who cannot get enough of princesses. The protagonist addresses readers as if they, too, were attending the school, and pretty black-and-white illustrations appear on almost every spread. Readers are encouraged to visit the Tiara Club Web site for contests, coloring sheets, and more. This attractively packaged book will surely appeal to girly girls who like royalty, fantasy, and adventure.
—Alison GrantCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Do you ever get scared of things? I do. For one thing, I'm scared I'll never get five hundred tiara points by the end of my first year here at the Academy, and then I won't be allowed to join the Tiara Club--and I really want to! It sounds so wonderful! And I'm scared of things like spiders and big, fierce dogs. Actually, thinking about anything big and fierce makes my knees weak! Our principal, Queen Gloriana, is scary too. She's very tall and gracious, but she can be very fierce if you do something wrong. Fairy Godmother--Fairy G.--is much friendlier, but even she can get angry. And when she does, she swells up to twice her usual size. Honestly. I'm not joking!
When I first heard we were going to meet a real dragon, I was so frightened I got hiccups. We were having breakfast, and Queen Gloriana and Fairy G. came in to say good morning.
"Good morning, my dear young princesses," Queen Gloriana said.
"I have a very important announcement for the first-year students. This morning, as you know, you have a Creative Cake Cooking for Perfect Palace Parties Class. This afternoon, however, you are to go straight to the Tower Room just as soon as you've finished lunch. You are very fortunate--King Percival has agreed to bring in one of his dragons!"
The room was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop.My heart was beating so fast, I thought I might burst. Then I hiccuped. And I was so embarrassed!
"Now," our principal went on, "I want you all to listen very carefully to what King Percival tells you. He will instruct you on How to Talk to Dragons, and he will give you your tiara points at the end of the lesson. I look forward to hearing that you all have at least ten points!" And then she swept out of the dining hall, and Fairy G.--who is much too huge to sweep out of anything--stomped out after her.
Of course we all started to talk at once, except for Princess Perfecta and Princess Floreen. Perfecta pretended to give a bored yawn, and Floreen immediately copied her. Just because Perfecta was at the Academy last year, she thinks she knows everything, even though she only got about a hundred tiara points in the whole year! Princess Alice's sister said Queen Gloriana was furious with Perfecta, and now she's back in the first year with us.
"A dragon!" Princess Katie said. Her eyes were shining. "What fun!"
"Do you think it'll be very big?" I asked nervously.
"Huge and ferocious!" Princess Charlotte said.
Princess Sophia shook her head. "Queen Gloriana would never allow that," she said. "I bet it'll be a very old dragon that can't even breathe fire anymore."
"Come on!" Alice stood up. "Let's go and get the boring old Cake Cooking Class over with. Then we can see the dragon for real! Hurry up and finish your toast, Daisy."
I looked at the toast lying untouched on my plate. I didn't feel very hungry--especially when I saw the burnt edges. They made me think of fiery breath.
"I'm done, thank you," I said.
Princess Emily took my hand as we hurried out of the dining room. "Don't worry," she whispered. "It'll be okay. At least, I hope so!"
Behind us, Princess Perfecta said loudly, "Some people are such scaredy-cats!"
Excerpted from The Tiara Club 3: Princess Daisy and the Dazzling Dragon by Vivian French Copyright © 2007 by Vivian French. Excerpted by permission.
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Anonymous
Posted February 21, 2010
No text was provided for this review.
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