A Powerful Princess Reading Guide
If you’re looking for princesses who’ve got a little more agency than waiting for their prince to find them, you’ve come to the right place.
Princesses have earned themselves a bit of a bad reputation in the past couple of decades – they’re too frilly, too lacking in agency, too… pink. Often, the negative reaction to princesses is a combination of Disney fatigue, legitimate criticism of the narrow ideals of beauty and love associated with princesses in fiction, and a somewhat misplaced negative attitude towards femininity (after all, femininity itself is not the problem; the limits placed on it are). However, readers of all ages can rejoice: there are a number of authors who have looked at the familiar princess stories and decided to go in a different direction.
One of the earliest books I can remember reading was Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted. That book, which is in part the inspiration for this post, was my first glimpse of a princess story where the princess herself was agentic, interesting, complicated, willful, flawed, and growing – not simply beautiful or occasionally brassy. While the princesses in these stories still occasionally need rescuing, that isn’t their whole purpose for existing. These princesses are whole people, and that’s what makes them worth reading.
Picture Books
Kate Beaton, author of “Hark! A Vagrant” has recently released a delightfully charming picture book called The Princess and the Pony. Her Princess Pinecone is a ferocious young warrior who wants, as all warriors want, to compete in battle astride a magnificent steed. For her birthday, she receives a potato-shaped little pony with a flatulence issue. Although Princess Pinecone is initially disappointed in her gift, she learns that victory comes in many shapes and sizes.
One of the best things about The Princess and the Pony is its diversity. Princess Pinecone herself is biracial, and all of the various crowd scenes in the book contain people from multiple backgrounds. This simple addition to the book, so often overlooked in children’s publishing, helps make The Princess and the Pony stand out. Combined with Beaton’s art and characteristic gentle humor, it’s an excellent read for a princess fan of any age.
Interstellar Cinderella takes a familiar fairytale and turns it on its head – then sets it in space. Written in infectious meter, Interstellar Cinderella introduces readers to a young girl confined to working on appliances who dreams of getting to fix rocket ships. With her ingenuity, mechanical know-how, and her trusty sonic socket wrench, she may just get the chance. During a parade, the prince’s ship breaks down, and Cinderella is able to come to his rescue.
The role reversal in Interstellar Cinderella has sweetly accomplished: the prince is not in any serious danger, but he is in need of a rescue, and he does not have the skills necessary to solve his problem. In helping him, Cinderella is able to make a friend, but the book still allows her to have her own agency and interests, without erasing them in a love story.
The art in Interstellar Cinderella is perfect for a space setting, and, like The Princess and the Pony, includes a welcome variety of diverse characters.
Graphic Novels
Recently, I took my copy of Princeless and handed it to my teenage brother. “You should check this out,” I told him. Kids his age – especially boys – are rarely recommended books that feature female protagonists, much less non-white female protagonists. Princeless, with its punchy art and kid-friendly writing that manages to communicate adult concepts, was perfect for him.
Although he was reluctant at first, within a day, he was sending me text messages asking for volume 2. Currently, there are 6 volumes of Princeless available, 7 actually but it still has no final date on the release of Volume 7. Volume 6 (Make Yourself - Part 2) was release last November 2017.
Princeless follows Princess Adrienne, a troublesome sixteen-year-old princess who has been tricked into a tower to await rescue by a handsome prince (princes, of course, are trained at a special school that seems designed to teach them toxic masculinity and classism rather than any useful life skills). One prince who shows up to rescue Adrienne, in fact, gets a lesson in the racism of calling a black princess “fair.” Instead of hanging around to wait for the next prince, however, Adrienne befriends her dragon, burns down the tower, and goes on a quest to rescue her other sisters. And that’s just where the fun gets started.
Princess Bubblegum from “Adventure Time” also stars in many of the graphic novels that have been spun off from the show. In Adventure Time: Bitter Sweets, she leaves on her annual trip through Ooo and runs into some problems along the way. Kate Leth brings a perfect blend of humor, affection, and troublemaking to the story – combined with Zachary Sterling’s art, readers get a story that pops off the page.
Additionally, Princess Bubblegum’s story is the fourth in a series. Marceline stars in one, Finn and Jake in another, and many more familiar characters make an appearance. Princess Bubblegum is one of my personal favorite princesses in fiction: she is about as femme as it’s possible to be, as she’s pink from head to toe, but she is also a brilliant leader, a supportive friend, an inventor, and an adventurer.
She has her own place in the “Adventure Time” universe, and she uses it to ensure that others can go on their adventures as well.
Middle Grade and Young Adult Novels
There are almost too many good novels to add to this section, so I will instead describe a couple and include a list of suggestions at the end. Fortunately for those of us with an enduring interest in princesses, there is no real shortage of good books.
While I mentioned Ella Enchanted earlier, Gail Carson Levine has numerous other princess books, all of which seek to give readers a new way to think about princesses. In The Two Princesses of Bamarre, Addie is a more typical princess: she wants to stay at home, embroider, and meet a nice young man. It is her sister Meryl who wants to go out and fight dragons and save the kingdom. When Meryl is struck with the incurable Gray Death, however, it is Addie who must leave the comfort of her castle and find a way to save her sister.
Addie’s journey is not an easy one: she is timid and fearful and gets into a number of scrapes. Unlike Meryl, she has no sword training – so, like many excellent heroes, she relies on her wits to escape. Watching Addie’s transformation from wallflower to a brave young woman who knows the meaning of sacrifice is as touching to me now as it was the first time I read the book in middle school.
Another of my long-time favorite princesses is Princess Cimorene of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles.
This series of four books follows Cimorene’s journey from being a stubborn princess through the many other roles she takes on. In the first book, Dealing with Dragons, Cimorene discovers that her parents have plotted to marry her off to the most dunderheaded prince she’s ever met. She’s gotten in trouble all her life for doing un-princesslike things – learning Latin, fencing, cooking, and more. When she realizes what her parents have done, she does another thing princesses aren’t supposed to do: she runs away and volunteers to become a dragon’s captive princess.
The rest of the series places Cimorene in a number of tight spots, highlighting her ingenuity, bravery, and kindness as she escapes them. One of my favorite things about the series is the focus placed on female friendships. Cimorene befriends her dragon, Kazul, a witch named Morwen, and a fellow princess named Alianora. All of these characters have different strengths and weaknesses, and watching their relationships develop is a wonderful part of the series.
Image Credits - The Two Princesses of Bamarre / Princess Cimorene
The List
Other books that are about or include princesses that break out of the stereotype include:
- Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
- Gail Carson Levine’s Princess Tales
- The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
- The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko
- Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness Quartet
- Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
Rereading Princesses
Many people have genuine objections to the ubiquity of princesses in pop culture, and exceptions like Merida from “Brave” do little to combat the often retrograde messages associated with princesses. However, princesses also provide a relatable cultural touchstone for all readers due to that very ubiquity. Offering people an understandable archetype is one way to keep people interested while doing new things with the story.
Princesses can be and often are characters that allow women to explore agency in fun and empowering ways. Continuing to read and write about those princesses who take limits and throw them out the window can be rewarding for readers – regardless of gender.
The books I discussed here give readers a new way to look at the concept of “Happily Ever After.”
Great list. You've included some really interesting sounding books. :)
From all of them I've only read the first of of the Lunar Chronicles so far and I really enjoyed it.
I like to read middle grade and sometimes YA, but maybe you could include some more adult novels in your next list as well. :)