An Abundance of Princesses

In the midst of getting This Merry Summertime published and searchable on Amazon (more stores to follow soon!) I'm participating in a great giveaway for free clean fiction in all genres. As we're heading towards the end of summer, this promotion is called Before Going Back to School All-Genre Clean Giveaway and all of the books have been approved as family-friendly, although not all are children's books. My book is Victoria: A Tale of Spain and you should check this promotion out if you're looking for clean books.

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If any of you have ever walked into a grocery store, a bookstore, or a sells-everything store like Walmart, you’ve seen Disney Princess merchandise. Little coloring books of Cinderella’s adventures, board books about Elsa for just a dollar, backpacks for little girls sporting a smiling image of red-haired Ariel or serene Belle. Rapunzel dolls, Snow White costume dresses, Tiana purses, and hairbrushes featuring all the princesses.

I didn’t actually grow up with these princesses, like so many women who are now my age, and I never knew much about the characters that inspired these toys. I was taken to see The Little Mermaid when it came out and I landed on brief moments of the other movies from time to time, but Disney stuff was really rare in my family because my mom disliked the whole princess thing--with a few exceptions like The Lion King and Fantasia (and a touch of Mary Poppins) because they weren’t princess movies. It was only as an adult that I saw many of the “Princess” movies in full for the first time.

I came to these movies so late that for a long time they all looked very similar. I could barely tell them apart except by the princess’s hair colors. But gradually I noticed two things: they are a broad cultural frame of reference that most people are familiar with; and they don’t necessarily have the same audience they did 10-15 years ago. As time goes on, people come and go from these movies and while the princesses always look the same, those interested in them do not. That could make them quite useful for using the Princesses and their evolution over time to place my books in the bigger picture by comparing them to something that is familiar to many of you.

So here’s a list of the movies that remind me of each book’s personality. You might not find this helpful (it depends on how much you like princesses!), but if not you can just laugh. 😊

• The Birthday Present ~ Beauty and the Beast
• Facets of Fantasy ~ Tangled
• The Palladia Series ~ Cinderella
• Victoria: A Tale of Spain ~ The Princess and the Frog
• The Test of Devotion ~ Mulan
• Bellevere House ~ Anastasia (I know, it's not technically Disney)
• A Year with the Harrisons ~ Sleeping Beauty
• Ryan and Essie ~ Pocahontas
• This Merry Summertime ~ Brave

And there will be more updates.