Dealing with Dragons

Cimorene is a princess, but she hates doing princess-y things like dancing and etiquette. So she runs away to become the personal assistant to a dragon, and foils the plans of some conniving wizards in the process.

This was my very favorite book as a kid, and it really holds up. I love that the things Cimorene runs away to do (cooking, cleaning, organizing) aren't exciting or glamorous, she just wants to be able to do things for herself. It's kind of a reverse Cinderella. (Though of course Kazul is respectful and friendly and not abusive.)

"Well, I'm not a proper princess, then," Cimorene snapped. "I make cherries jubilee, and I volunteer for dragons, and I conjugate Latin verbs-or at least I would if anyone would let me. So there!"

A princess who refuses to be proper and runs away to live with dragons? Sign me up! Combine this with turning fairy tale tropes on their head and a dash of humor and you have Dealing with Dragons, the first book in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede. I wish I'd discovered this series as a kid. It would easily be a childhood favorite.

I never knew I wanted to be Cimorene when I grew up. She doesn't let society's expectations of what a princess should be get in the way of living the life she wants. Organizing her dragon's show more treasure, cooking and fencing are much preferable to being a damsel in distress to be rescued by knights. In fact Cimorene has to keep turning the knights away so she can stay a dragon's princess. They are such a nuisance! Cimorene is courageous, witty, a creative problem solver and learns how to work as a team to accomplish her goals. It's a great message.

Plot wise, there is a mystery to solve. As a story aimed at a middle-grade audience it's not overly complex though Wrede manages to add a couple twists that keep things from being too predictable. There is plenty of action, the story is fast paced and plenty of sly humor to go around.

There is something magical about Dealing with Dragons. It's one of those books that as soon as I finished I couldn't wait to read it again. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. show less

Cimorene is not your traditional princess. She wants to learn magic or cooking or something useful, but her options are limited unless she feels like getting married - and she doesn't, at least not right now. So she decides to volunteer as a dragon's princess instead.

I really enjoyed the humor and the way the author plays with the conventions of the fantasy genre in this tale. Cimorene is her own person: smart, practical, maybe a bit tomboyish but she also likes to cook. She makes friends with her dragon, Kazul, and doesn't want the bother of would-be rescuing knights. Fun to read or as a readaloud, and enough to hold the interest of a wide age range.

Oh, I like a story that starts by dissing your typical princess, and moves right on to a spunky, intelligent heroine, who happens to be disadvantaged by her birth. Princess Cimorene would rather be eaten by dragons than marry an eligible prince, so to the dragons she goes when threatened by this horrible fate. Fresh, funny and self-respecting, and a main character with an organizational bent – love it!

Princess Cimorene is prevented by her parents from learning fencing, magic, or even Latin because it's deemed "improper" for a princess. When she learns she's to be married to a loathsome prince, it's the final straw and Cimorene runs away and volunteers to be a captive princess for a dragon named Kazul. In the dragons' caves, Cimerone comes into her own not only by making meals for Kazul and her guests, but navigating diplomacy among dragons and contending with an evil plot by the Wizards. It's a wonderfully funny novel that plays with fantasy tropes. And it was published in 1990 so it was in the vanguard of upending the princess narrative.

This was just good clean fun. Dealing with Dragons is about a girl who doesn't want to be a princess, so she runs away to do absolutely anything else and quickly finds herself working as a cook, maid, and librarian to a female dragon who plays an active role in dragon politics.

This is such a cozy book. I've never wanted to live in a cave until I read this. There's a lot of Cimorene reading and cooking, but there's also a great bit of plot that kicks off when wizards start showing up in places they don't belong. Its just a really good time, and the way Wrede tied up the end of the book was really masterful. Everything that felt like a joyful diversion earlier on in the novel became key in the end.

Charming and cute. Nostalgia and a sale on the electronic boxed set brought this to my attention; while I have the paperback set, they get more and more challenging to both store and read. The first two books in the series were/are comfort reads from long ago, and Dealing with Dragons has successfully withstood the nostalgia test.

Language is young adult; it's clear and straight-forward with that occasional side-eye wink that makes it enjoyable to non-young adults as well. Cimorene of the Kingdom of Linderwall is a princess who is fed up with having her options limited (fencing, magic, philosophy, cooking and economics) because she's told that's just not proper. One day, she discovers her parents are in the process of arranging a show more marriage to a properly eligible prince, which sounds absolutely boring. So she takes advice from a frog--which is, in fact, perfectly acceptable in the fairy-tale world--and runs off to find a dragon. Kazul is a senior dragon, and she and Cimorene get along famously. Then the troubles begin.

Female-centric characters are center stage. It has a slower start as Cimorene gets her gumption, but eventually ramps up into a lot of conflicts both small and large, mostly according to acceptable fairy-tale standards. The villains are villainous and appropriately hateable, and Wrede follows acceptable gentle young-person standards in dealing with them.

What was a surprising bit of fun about this re-released edition is that Wrede writes a retrospective introduction. She writes, "This book was a tremendous amount of fun to write, because I liked Cimorene and her intensely practical approach to all the fairy-tale tropes I have always loved." She further elaborates that her family provided a number of similar women who "takes any guff from anyone. They aren't proving a point about what women could, should or can do; they are ignoring that whole question (which none of them considers a question worth asking at all) and getting on with doing the things that interest them most."

I've always loved Cimorene's practical and can-do attitude. She doesn't fuss; she reaches a roadblock and finds a way around. One can do worse. show less