It has a feminist bent, and Harriet is no shrinking violet of a princess. This is a really cute take on a fairy tale. and accidentally puts everyone else in the kingdom to sleep! Despite her misgivings, she goes in search of a prince to help wake up her parents and subjects, with her riding quail, Mumfrey, as her loyal companion. After discovering that the curse will happen no matter what-and that she is therefore invincible-she goes questing and has lots of adventures, getting in all the fun she can before the curse hits.īut Harriet is not an ordinary princess, and when it's time to be cursed, she fights back.

Harriet is rather unimpressed with the idea. Wanting to get ahead of the curse, her parents search out princes they can have on standby for when the curse hits. On her twelfth birthday, Harriet will injure herself on a hamster wheel and fall into a deep sleep. I even want to keep going with the series (which doesn't always happen)!īased on the story of Sleeping Beauty, Harriet the Invincible begins with a curse. Harriet the Invincible is actually a highly enjoyable illustrated chapter book. Still, I came across one of Vernon's stories in an anthology and thought it was hilarious, so I decided to give this book a try.

The synopsis says it's perfect for fans of Babymouse, but I'm definitely not one of those. I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. After that, if one doesn't jump the queue, one goes on to YA after that, the world. The Ranger's Apprentice series fell into this mode. * - Chapter-book, it turns out, is a technical terms among children's librarians, meaning the sort of more text-dense book a young reader first graduates to from picture books, sometime in grade school. Whatever happened to illustrations in books.?) Good for the new chapter-book (*) reader in one's family, or to read aloud to younger kids (with the delightful pictures, of course. Which actually makes me wonder if modern kids ever do manage to encounter the original fairy tales.

Anyone who grew up on the 'Fractured Fairy Tales' in Rocky and Bullwinkle needs no intro to the shtick, but this still managed to surprise a couple of laughs out of me along the way. (Late off the mark, true, for anyone who knew her from her long-running webcomic Digger.) This is Vernon in her kids'-book mode. I first encountered Ursula Vernon through her brilliant adult short story 'Toad Words'. The assorted adventures of a hamster princess who figures out that if the christening curse is supposed to work on her 12th birthday, it must needs also keep her alive until then.

Harriet the Invincible by Ursula Vernon