I liked this better than I thought I would. I have a thing against princesses. But I love school stories.Main premise is that Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel are all going to Princess School. They meet for the first time there. I'm not sure how old they are. Tweenage, I would guess. Their stories aren't quite the same as in the fairy tale. Cinderella is living with her evil stepmother, stepsisters, and ineffectual dad. Rapunzel, however, has escaped her tower with the encouragement (if not actual help) of a boy prince.When you're taking a fairy tale, messing with it, and turning it into a children's book, there's a real risk of being cutesy and funny to the point of being unfunny and uncute and just plain annoying. Martial arts moves in case you're attacked by a wolf on your way through the woods? I wasn't so keen on that bit. But then when a teacher explains that many frogs have acquired adaptive camouflage of spots in the shape of a crown on their head to fool unsuspecting princesses into thinking they're princes and therefore being nice to them.. well, that was pretty cool. And scientific! Yea, froggy evolution totally would do that!And I couldn't really hate any of the princesses, even if there was a lot of niceness and friendship and looking pretty in pretty dresses going on.What I disliked was that the princess school isn't a boarding school. There are some real-world American analogs that I would've preferred not be there. Hearthroom instead of homeroom. Trunks instead of lockers. I think an older style of school would've fit better in this fairy tale world.I will be reading the next one though, because this book ended with the tantalizing promise of a competition between the Princess School and the Grimm School, which is the school of witches. Games, along with school, is another weak point of mine! Curses! ( )

This is a very cute little book, about a girls' school where everyone learns how to be proper fairy tale princesses (my favorite class is 'Frog Identification', haha). Ella is experiencing the expected problems of her cruel stepfamily and is trying to adjust to her new school. She has help from her new friends Snow, Rapunzel, and Rose (also called Beauty, as in Sleeping). I think the part I liked the best about this concept is that it keeps the princesses' situations but has them reacting more like real little girls - Rose is a little glum because she is way oversheltered by her family, Snow is teased for being a little weird because who wouldn't be growing up in the forest in a house full of dwarves, and Rapunzel figured out she could just climb out of the tower herself a long time ago. ( )

The Princess School is a wonderful series that takes four fairy tale princesses (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Rapunzel) and puts them all in school together. Jane B. Mason and Sarah Hines Stephens have created unique personalities for each girl- creating a sort of school girl clique such as is seen in many series (like Sleepover Friends in my childhood), but, rather than having them face some nasty classmate, we've got all sorts of fairy tale foes! The girls have to resolve their own fairy tale issues- without the prince to come in and save them.

In this particular story, Cinderella has to face two nasty stepsisters, a stepmother, and a total lack of decent footwear, while starting at the new school (thanks to her fairy godmother's in). Luckily her three new friends are there for her, and she makes quite an impression at the ball! ( )