The Princess Diaries

The Princess Diaries

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot, ISBN 0-06-029210-5, Harper Trophy 2000

Plot Summary:

The main character of the story is Mia Thermopolis, a ninth grader living in New York City. Mis is being raised by her mother, a painter. One day, Mia’s dad shows up and reveals that he’s only told Mia half the truth about her life. She’s always believed that he was a politician in Europe, but he tells her that he’s actually the prince of Genovia, a small country overseas. This makes Mia, his only heir, the princess of his homeland. Once the news gets out, Mia becomes the center of attention in a way she never has before, and is not sure she wants to know. Mia meets her grandmother while she’s in New York to visit and she begins her training to become the best princess she can be. Adding to her stress is her mother’s new relationship with her Algebra teacher, Frank, and a fight with her best friend, Lily. Mia must cope with her changing life and learn what it truly means to be a princess.

Critical Evaluation:

This book could not be more clearly aimed at teenage girls. The language is a bit fluffy and will not prove as a challenging read. I would give this book to any young girl who struggles to read or is looking for an updated princess story. The premise is a bit unbelievable, but most little girls have wished at some point that they were a princess from a far away land, so the story does have a wish fulfillment factor. This is the first in a series, so readers will be hooked but will almost certainly want to know what happens to Mia in the coming books. The book is filled with pop culture references that might be a bit out of date now, but will still resonate with some readers and make them understand and relate to Mia in a comfortable way. Mia’s self proclaimed status as an outcast will also ring true with teenage girls, since most of them have felt that way about themselves at one time or another. One thing readers and parents should be aware of is that as the books progress in the series and Mia grows up, the adult themes become more and more prevalent. One drawback to the book was Mia’s attitude about her father’s cancer. The normal teenage attitude is to be somewhat flippant, but some readers might find Mia’s jokes and jabs at her father to be off putting.

Reader’s Annotation:

Mia’s father just dropped a bomb: she’s really a princess? And she thought she didn’t fit in before…

Information about the Author:

From the author’s website:

Meg Cabot is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of books for both adults and tweens/teens. Born in the year of the Fire Horse (a notoriously unlucky astrological sign) and raised in Bloomington, Indiana, Meg also lived in Grenoble, France and Carmel, California (the setting for her bestselling Mediator series) before moving to New York City after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Indiana University.

After working for ten years as an assistant residence hall director at New York University (an experience from which she occasionally draws inspiration for her best-selling Heather Wells mystery series), Meg wrote the Princess Diaries series, which was made into two hit movies by Disney. While over 25 million copies of Meg’s nearly 80 published books have been sold in 38 countries, Meg’s most proud of the letters she’s received from fans thanking her for helping them to overcome their “dislike of reading.”

Some of Meg’s fan favorites include the 1-800-Where-R-You? series (which has been reprinted under the title Vanished and was made into the Lifetime series called Missing), as well as All-American Girl and Avalon High (on which an original Disney Channel movie was based), and several books told entirely in emails and text messages (Boy Next Door/Boy Meets Girl/Every Boy’s Got One). A fourth book told in this format, The Boy is Back, will be published by HarperCollins in 2016.

Meg’s first ever adult book in the Princess Diaries series, Royal Wedding, will be available in Summer 2015, along with an installment of the series for younger readers, From the Notebook of a Middle School Princess. Remembrance, a new book in the Mediator series, will be available in 2016.

Meg Cabot (her last name rhymes with habit, as in “her books can be habit forming”) currently lives in Key West, Florida with her husband and various cats. If you see her husband, please do not tell him that he married a fire horse, as he has not figured it out yet.

Genre:

Fantasy, coming of age, chick lit

Curriculum Ties:

Divorced parents, dealing with a loved one’s illness, feeling out of place

Challenge Issues:

N/A

Reading Level:

Ages 12+

Booktalking Ideas:

What would you do if you find out you were royalty? Do your parents ever date? Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong?

Why is the material included?:

I remember loving the movie when it came out. Mia will definitely feel familiar for a lot of teenage girls and the book is a good starting point for slow or reluctant readers. 

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