Princess Diaries

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

Princess Diaries was perhaps the most popular book when I was in middle school, every girl had the books and during silent reading you better believe we were all reading about Princess Amelia and talking about how cool it would be to have that lifestyle. A slightly different take on fame, Meg Cabot the author of many popular young adult/tween fiction, Princess Dairies was perhaps her biggest success that became a very popular series among tween readers. The Princess diaries is about a young girl growing up with her mother in New York City and going to a private school where her father wasn’t in the picture. What she soon finds out was that her father was a prince of some European country in between France and Spain, known as Genovia. Alas, we have modern take on a princess story. Come on, is that all you can come up for young girls, Fame, The Perfect Body Image and Princess fiction?  A coming of age story with a twist of modern princesses and romance, Princess Mia must choose a lifestyle as the invisible high school girl or the future Princess of Genovia?

      Another story that was intended for a young adult audience, The Princess Diaries became a very popular series that tween girls fell in love with. Speaking as one of those girls, this is yet another story that promotes fame in a slightly different way, royalty and what that means in modern times. Let’s not focus on diplomatic or political concerns that royalty must take on, the story focuses on Mia essentially being at an in between stage of her life who has frizzy hair and comes off as a dork and often invisible to the people around her. Once she finds out she is the daughter of a prince, she instantly becomes the most popular girl at school and everyone wants to be her friend, even the popular boys and girls Mia secretly hates. Mia gets a taste of what’s it is like to be a part of the cool crowd and realizes what true friendship is and that she might not be cut out to take on such important responsibilities as a princess.