The Light Princess

This edition has missing pages around the illustrations and completely blank pages. This is a shame because my daughter was thoroughly enjoying the story. Two stars for the story. This printing gets 1 star.

The Light Princess has no flaws. I have never read a fairy tale that made me laugh so hard--my wife and I could hardly catch our breaths at the beginning of the story. And then we cried at the end; the symbolism is strikingly powerful. As good as this book is, however, I like one George MacDonald book better: The Lost Princess, although that book is hard to find outside of an anthology. If you can ever find The Lost Princess, however, you find another masterpiece. For the record, my -wife- likes The Light Princess better: I guess there's no accounting for taste! ;)

When I received this as a gift, I had already read and thoroughly delighted in "At the Back of the North Wind," "The Princess and the Goblin," "The Princess and Curdie," and "The Golden Key." When you read MacDonald, if your heart is right, you feel sheltered--the world he creates for you is as trustworthy and pure as C. S. Lewis's Narnia or Rivendell of Tolkien's Middle Earth. At the same time, you feel challenged to transform your own world and make it more like MacDonald's. I was expecting another dose of the same awe-inspiring goodness without false piety or preachiness that is MacDonald's literary legacy. In "The Light Princess," however, there was an unexpected ingredient--a sharp wit that pervades the whole book and made me laugh out loud more than once. In a modern world where wit and vulgarity are viewed as conjoined twins, how satisfying a book this is! MacDonald infused delicious humor into his characters without losing the innocence. I fell in love with this book by page three, and it has surpassed "The Princess and the Goblin" as my favorite work of George MacDonald. The fact that my favorite illustrator of all time, Maurice Sendak, added his talents to this book is icing on the cake. Sendak always grabs the heart and soul of the written work and renders it into drawings too evocative to be believed. The drawing of the prince with only his head above the water took my breath away, and in one fabulous illustration, the hilarious expression on the face of the gravity-deprived infant princess as she floats away reflects the hilarity of the story itself.If some of MacDonald's other stories have turned you off because they are too long, too "deep" or whatever, don't miss this treasure as a result. It is MacDonald-Light, and by that I mean not only easy to read, but typically illumined with beauty and truth. Plus, it's a love story that pokes fun of its own sentimentality. Anyone not brain-dead and heart-numb ought to adore it.

Are you a George MacDonald fan (as C.S. Lewis was), a Fairy Tale fan (Do you still remember the funniest lines from "The Princess Bride"?), or do you just enjoy a good story? Then you will love this "forgotten" classic. In this little book, MacDonald uses a classic fairy-tale formula: King and Queen forget to invite The Bad Fairy to the new baby's christening, bringing down the Bad Fairy's ire and a creative enchantment on the little princess - even while the author pokes tongue-in-cheek fun at fairy-tale convention. What complications does this enchantment bring to the royal household? Does anyone figure out how to break the spell? Does the prince (there's always a prince!) who falls in love with her ever have his love requited? Will there be a Hans Christian Andersen ending, a Disney ending, or something even better?Other authors (such as E. Nesbit) have humorously played with the classic fairy tale plot, resulting in creatively entertaining stories; but none have done so as movingly as George MacDonald. His little story sneaks into the back door of your emotions, as its plot "twists" bring the story more depth than you were expecting. Fun? Yes. Spiritually true? Yes. It is, in a word, wonderful.

This is one of the most beautiful stories I have ever read! My friends tire of me recomending it to them -- but those who take my advise fall equally in love with its charm. The princess reminds me of Pearl in _The Scarlet Letter_, she cannot be truly human until she cries. What an idea! We cannot truly expereance real joy in life until we have felt the sting of pain. MacDonald never wrote fluff, his words have meaning even when born on the wings of fairies. Be encouraged and delighted by this beautiful fairy story. They say it's just for children, but the theme of love and the importance of gravity of character are as precious to the adult reader as the pool of water to the princess.

George MacDonald's story of the princess who lost her gravity (through an evil curse, of course), is the most pithy, humorous, lovely fairy tale on earth. Besides being weightless, she has no *inner* gravity--she has never cried. So her joy isn't real joy and her laughter is empty. The self-sacrificing love of the prince opens her eyes...and we see what wholeness means. Maurice Sendak's whimsically wonderful illustrations only serve to heighten the book's qualities...sheer delight is the result. A must for lovers of Lewis Carroll, A. A. Milne, J. M. Barrie, Pamela Travers, C. S. Lewis, Charles Kingsley or anyone with even a passing interest in children's literature.