Dealing With Dragons

Rating:
Summary: Dealing with Dragons
Review: Any smart girl (or lady!) who knows her fairy tales and fantastical elements will revel in this tale! It's chock full of all the favorite conventions, but they're presented in a fresh, unconventional way. It's not a 'deep' book, but it's perfect for a humorous break.

I highly recommend this book, along with "Ella Enchanted," and "The Midwife's Apprentice".

Rating:
Summary: Dealing With Dragons (Book 1)
Review: Cimerone of Linderwall is everything a princess shouldn't be. She isn't short like her sisters, or as pretty (or dumb). She doesn't want to learn about embroidery, lady-like manners, how to bow perfectly, and, least of all, how loudly it is permissible to scream when being carried off by a giant. So she bullies her father's people into giving her fencing lessons, magic lessons, cooking classes, and many other things. Finally, she has had it. The royal family takes a vacation up to the mountains, and there she finds that she will be married to the son of the royal family that lives there. She runs into a mountain full of dragons, and becomes the dragon Kazul's princess, cooking and cleaning and practicing her Latin skills. She makes friends with the dragon Woraug's princess, Alianora, and, with Kazul's and the witch Morwen's help, she thwarts a plot by the local wizards to interfere with the choosing of the dragon King.

This is definitely a good read! It was humorous, and you can tell that it started out as a regular fairy tale, but Patricia Wrede has made it much, much better by doing this. Dealing with Dragons was only the first, and I hope to be reading the other three very soon!

Rating:
Summary: Insufferable Heroine, Boring Dragons
Review: Forget this one. The Princess Cimorene seems to have a bad case of feminist-inspired brain cloud, running away from repressive parents only to enter drudge service to a dragon -- but it's a she-dragon, so that's all right then.

The main character is snotty, mumbles passive-aggressively under her breath, and demonstrates that acting stupid and vain is the only way to deal with unscrupulous wizards. Not what I would call fine role-modeling for girls of any age.

Male (human and otherwise) characters are without exception either clueless morons or cruel, devious wizards up to no good.

The action is overly-descriptive and full of needless, distractive detail. Action is often sluggish to nonexistent -- pages of boring conversation. Attempts at humor by alluding to other fairy tales fall flat.

Suffers from the amateur-writer's pitfall: It Fails To Entertain. During evening storytime, we skimmed and abridged the last half of the book, just to make an end ASAP.

Rating:
Summary: a MUST read
Review: Sixteen-year-old Cimorene, Princess of Linderwall, is everything that a Princess should not be. She's headstrong, curious, stubborn, opinionated, smart, and tomboyish. Not only that, she is bored. Utterly, and completely bored. So when she has the chance to runaway, she takes it. Now she's living with Kazul, one of the most dangerous and powerful dragons around. A dragon who looks vicious, but is really quite sweet to her. However, Cimorene being Cimorene, she has a knack for finding and befriending dangerous characters such as a witch named Moranz, a stone Prince, a death-dealing talking bird, some wizards who are up to no good, and more. Adventure was what Cimorene was looking for, and this little Princess certainly got it!

Fans of fantasy novels will be overjoyed to find DEALING WITH DRAGONS, which is the first book in the ENCHANTED FOREST CHRONICLES. Cimorene is an extremely fun character who will warm the hearts of children of all ages, especially females, as DEALING WITH DRAGONS is one of the few fantasy series heralding a female as the main character. The descriptions of the dragons, both personality and looks-wise, will charm even the grumpiest of people, as they are vivid and enchanting and make you feel as if you are right there alongside them. Patricia C. Wrede has done an amazing job with this novel, and I look forward to reading Book Two in the series SEARCHING FOR DRAGONS.

Erika Sorocco

Rating:
Summary: Well Worth It
Review: This is an excellent unabridged version of "Dealing With Dragons." It's five hours and twelve minutes long and is performed by a full cast. Although sometimes the lines sounded stilted, as if the actors did not have enough time to read and think about their lines before saying them but overall the actors did a very good job. The story was light-hearted and humorous with unusual takeoffs on the traditional fanasy stories and an excellent witty heroine named Princess Cimorene. A good choice to any audio library.