| $@%&! level: None “Bedroom” level: None Violence level: Medium Back Cover: “Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, spends the first years of her life under her aunt's guidance learning to communicate with animals. As she grows up Ani develops the skills of animal speech, but is never comfortable speaking with people, so when her silver-tongued lady-in-waiting leads a mutiny during Ani's journey to be married in a foreign land, Ani is helpless and cannot persuade anyone to assist her. Becoming a goose girl for the king, Ani eventually uses her own special, nearly magical powers to find her way to her true destiny.” |
But I digress.
Aside from the remarkably sudden change from frightened and unsure child to confident woman (at least in the presence of the right man), there were a lot of things I loved about this retelling of one of the less well known fairytales. The system of magic was just the right mix of mystical and practical, a combination you rarely see. It was especially statisfying that some of the things you expect to be important and magical are actually nothing of the sort. It's a lot like the over-active imagination that I had as a child, only in this case it's replaced by actual magic. And I love that Isi (as the Crown Princess comes to be called), ends up surviving, thriving, and eventually triumphing because she makes people like her, and helps them believe in themselves. Even though she doesn't have the magical “people-speaking” that makes her treacherous lady-in-waiting so charismatic and dangerous, and even though her mother (who has the same “people-speaking” power) thinks Isi is a complete failure as a leader because she doesn't have that kind of magic, she nonetheless manages to become every bit as effective, if not more so, simply by seeing other people in the best possible light. She pays attention to them and their problems, and helps them see themselves as she sees them, and when she needs help, her new friends are there ready to help her. It's not because she forced them to, or fooled them with magic. It's because they want to, and I think that's the real reason she ends up winning. And although she does discover a different kind of magic, I think it's that ability to care about people that is the truly magical gift Isi discovers in herself.