The Princess Diaries FROM THE PUBLISHER
She's just a New York City girl living with her artist mom...
News Flash: Dad is prince of Genovia. (So that's why a limo meets her at the airport!)
Downer: Dad can't have any more kids. (So no heir to the throne.)
Shock of the Century: Like it or not, Mia Thermopolis is prime princess material.
Mia must take princess lessons from her dreaded grandmére, the dowager princess of Genovia, who thinks Mia has a thing or two to learn before she steps up to the throne.
Well, her father can lecture her until he's royal-blue in the face about her princessly duty—no way is she moving to Genovia and leaving Manhattan behind. But what's a girl to do when her name is Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo?
2001 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Readers (ALA), Books for the Teen Age 2001 (NYPL) and 2001 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)
About the Author
Meg Cabot is the author of the best-selling, critically acclaimed, immensely popular Princess Diaries novels, as well as All-American Girl, Haunted, and two Regency novels, Nicola and the Viscount and Victoria and the Rogue. Meg was born in Bloomington, Indiana, and her childhood was spent in pursuit of air conditioning, of which there was little at the time in southern Indiana. A primary source proved to be the Monroe County Public Library, where Meg whiled away many hours, reading the complete works of Jane Austen, Judy Blume, and Barbara Cartland.
Armed with a fine arts degree from Indiana University, Meg moved to New York City, intent upon pursuing a career in freelance illustration. Illustrating, however, soon got in the way of Meg's truelove, writing, and so she abandoned it and got a job as the assistant manager of an undergraduate dormitory at New York University, writing on the weekends, and whenever her boss wasn't looking.
Meg lives in New York City with her husband, Benjamin, a poet, financial market writer and fellow Hoosier, and their one-eyed cat, Henrietta.
SYNOPSIS
"So, what I want to know is, if my dad's an actual prince, how come I have to learn algebra?" Mia ponders this, and much more, when she finds out that her father is prince of Genovia. Living with her cool artist mom in New York City, Mia can't imagine leaving to become princess in Genovia. But because her father can't have any more kids, she is the heir to the throne. Accepting her title means getting lessons on being a perfect princess and leaving Manhattan - will Mia eventually give in to her father and become Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo?
FROM THE CRITICS
Twist
If girrrrl heroines are what you want, the hilarious Princess Diaries has a winner in sassy Mia.
Buffalo News
A hilarious read.
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
A hilarious read.
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
It's got all the bubbly and frivolous pleasure of imported champagne, and readers will drink it in.
Publishers Weekly
"This is how NOT a princess I am. I am so NOT a princess that when my dad started telling me I was one, I totally started crying." Raised in a Greenwich Village loft in New York City by her flaky-but-loving artist mother, ninth grader Mia Thermopolis is shocked to learn from her father that she is now the heir apparent to Genovia, the tiny European kingdom he rules. Her paternal grandmother further disrupts Mia's life when she comes to town to mold the girl into a proper royal. Cabot's debut children's novel is essentially a classic makeover tale souped up on imperial steroids: a better haircut and an improved wardrobe garner Mia the attention of a hitherto unattainable boy. (Of course this boy isn't all he appears to be, and another boy--the true friend Mia mostly takes for granted--turns out to be Mr. Right.) A running gag involving sexual harassment (including a foot fetishist obsessed with Mia's best friend Lilly Moscovitz and a sidewalk groper dubbed the "Blind Guy") is more creepy than funny, and the portrayal of the self-conscious pseudo-zaniness of downtown life is over the top (Lilly's parents, both psychoanalysts, get Rolfed, practice t'ai chi and attend benefits for "the homosexual children of survivors of the Holocaust"). Though Mia's loopy narration has its charms and princess stories can be irresistible, a slapstick cartoonishness prevails here. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Read all 11 "From The Critics" >
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
Teens like novels written in diary format, and you can bet they'll be lining
up for this hilarious story about a gawky 14-year-old New Yorker who learns
she is a princess. Mia spends every available moment pouring her feelings
into the journal her mother gave her: she writes during algebra class, in
the ladies' room at the plaza (much nicer than the one in Tavern on the
Green), in her grandmother's limousine. She writes down her thoughts on
everything - from algebra and her mother's love life to her jet-setting
father's announcement that she's the heir to the throne of the principality
of Genovia. Then, of course, she records her grandmother's efforts to turn
her into a princess, her dealings with classmates, the press, and a
bodyguard, and also her attraction to the most gorgeous guy in school and
her attempts to be assertive and happy with her new life. She whines; she
gloats; she sheers, worries, rants, and raves. Reading her journal is like
reading a note from your best friend. Cabot has a fine grasp of teen dialect
(and punctuation), an off-the-wall sense of humor that will have readers
laughing out loud, and a knack for creating fully realized teen and adult
characters that readers will miss when the story ends. — Chris Sherman
Art & Photography
Book Info
