Number 13

So as part of my self directed learning plan, I had decided that I wanted to read some retellings of fairy tales. That worked out nicely because I'm writing a paper about that. So this weekend I decided to read with the intention of helping myself with my paper.

Does contain spoilers...


I have several books that retell the 12 Dancing Princesses story and my sister told me about another one that I didn't have and hadn't read called The Thirteenth Princess. The Protagonist is a servant girl, who at the beginning of the books tells the reader how she learned that she was actually the thirteenth daughter of the king. The queen, her mother, had died after giving birth to the girl, Zita; and the king was so upset about not having any sons and partly blamed baby Zita for the death of his wife that he named her Zita and had her grow up thinking she was a servant. The thing about the name, the king's and the queen's names both started with the letter "A" and so they decided that all their children's names would start with that letter. The author did some research on Name Etymology and all the names had meanings that were characteristic of the Characters. I tend to get confused sometimes with deciding who the Antagonist of a story is. If it is the "bad guy" then near the end, you learn that the princesses Nurse is a witch who had made sure that all the offspring of the king were girls, that because of that the queen died, and that she had cursed the girls to dance every night and wear themselves out so much that they would eventually die. That's basically the Plot. Zita and a boy near her age and his brother nearer to the eldest princess's age help stop the Nurse and break the curse (haha that rhymed). Although the King dies from saving his girls and everyone else, the story ends happily. So that is an extremely watered down version of the book. It was really good. I recommend it. Even though it is "children's literature." Oh well.