The Thirteenth Princess (review)

In this retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," Zita is the thirteenth princess born to a father who desperately wants sons, so she's cast out to serve in the palace kitchen and forced to communicate with her beloved sisters only in secret as they endure their father's attempts to marry them off. When the princesses fall prey to an evil enchantment that threatens their lives, it is up to Zita, and a few of the quirky characters she has met in her time as servant, to find the source of the spell and destroy it, saving her sisters and possibly gaining her father's love. A solid adaptation that upholds the original while introducing a few innovative twists, this tale has exactly the right combination of magic, adventure, and romance to please young readers just discovering the world of fairy-tale retellings. While the twelve princesses are a bit bland, Zita herself is enchantingly plucky in her willful stubbornness, and her relationship with Breckin, a stable boy, is surprisingly sweet despite its predictable trajectory. The inevitable revelation of the sinister bad guy is, however, not at all what the reader may be expecting, and certainly the resolution to Zita's issues with her father is also rather startling, bringing about a thoughtful, though still pleasingly happy, ending. Hand this to readers who enjoy the original but are not quite ready for Jessica Day George's adaptation, Princess of the Midnight Ball (BCCB 3/09).