Customer Reviews
A Liitle Princess 
2008-10-25
The book was in excellent condition as was the jacket and the attached ribbon for a bookmark. Thanks for the great quality.
Better than Harry by half 2007-10-28
I've a smart librarian friend who told me that whenever she gets impatient with a new (adult) novel's ploddingness, she just takes up The Little Princess and rereads it. I've found this a great practice, and I've reread it myself now several times with pleasure. Although the storyline of orphans and wicked proprietresses may sound overwrought and dated, the writing is so clever and the characterizations so deft and loving, that sentimentality is transformed to tenderness, and preachiness mutated to inspiration. Indeed, the level of writing is so much more sophisticated than the Harry Potter series, that, at the risk of heresy among Amazon fans, it took me quite some time before I was willing to accept the more earthbound magic of Rowland's gifted children.
Better than Sappy 2006-07-18
A Little Princess follows the story of Sara Crewe, a young girl whose mother died when she was a baby and who has been sent to bording school. She has the finest clothes and toys and anything she wants but isn't spoiled (the story is a fairy tale, by the way). She imagines herself as a princess and wants to be kind wise and just. She does good deeds as her way of "scattering largess to the population." This results in her being the social butterfly of the bording school and earns her the animosity of its queen bee. All this changes in an instant when her fortune is lost and she becomes a scullery maid in the same boarding school. She works all day, sleeps in an unheated attic, and is underfed. She now imagines herself as a princess in disguise, and continues to try and do good deeds for anyone less fotunate. But now she has another identity too - a soldier, like her father, who must live on rations and bravely face each day.
I didn't find this book to be overly sappy and sentimental, but it got close to the borderline at times. There were plenty of discussions of dolls and lacey dresses and ribbons. I read this as an adult. I guess these are supposed to appeal to little girls who want to have a little princessy playground and so would love to read about ribbons, but I think descriptions of lace would have put me off as a child as well. Like I said, these only get borderline sappy, probably because Sara soon becomes penniless and enters the lower class. As a scullery maid she experiences hunger, phsychological abuse from the bording school mistress, and a grinding work schedule. This is not sugar coated for the children, but it isn't the focus either. The focus is on Sara's internal thoughts, her relationships with her few loyal student friends, and what she thinks of the neighbors and the new people she meets and things she sees. So even though there is all this poverty it is there as a setting and not because the author has an axe to grind. Strangely enough, this book came across as realistic.
This is a children's book, but functions as a book for adults as well. For example, the estate agent's diplomacy in getting Sara hired by the bording school after she is found to be penniless has some subtlties that are going to be more real for older readers.
I recommend this book to all. It is a children's book that works for adults too. It skirts the border of sappy, but for me didn't cross over at any point. It was a good story that I read through quickly and did not get bored with or bogged down by.
What a Great Book! 
2005-12-01
I read this book to my first through fourth grade students last year, and they loved it! Even the youngest were transported to another time and another place through this book. Our school targets students in need (mostly lower-income, minority children), so Sara's story really is a world away from the lives they know. Yet they truly enjoyed this book, and so did I!
A GREAT STORY 2005-10-15
This book is more dated than THE SECRET GARDEN, but it's still a great story. It's hard NOT to identify with Sara Crewe.
I loved this book as a child (though not as much as I loved THE SECRET GARDEN, which I think is a better book). However, A LITTLE PRINCESS is far better than most books written for children! It tells a great story and it makes you think, even if some of those thoughts make you uncomfortable, like the thoughts about differences between rich and poor children.
For a modern, well-written book about a girl at an English boarding school, read Libby Koponen's BLOW OUT THE MOON. It has the same classic feel, though the American heroine is very different from Sara and MOON is quite funny in places.
Must Read Book!!! 2005-09-25
As the popularity of the recent
Lemony Snicket books proves, children never get tired of reading about orphans and their misfortunes. So Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1905 story about a pampered little rich girl who suddenly finds herself poor and fatherless should continue to entice generations of fans.
