Mysteries and complexities have their own charm but sometimes the simplest stories are the nicest :D So are the people :)

"Simply Heartwarming" ALWAYS

P.S. Thanks Missee Shahib for joining in; and enduring the grumpiness :/ :/

My second Frances Hodgson Burnett book of the year and it was wonderful.

We follow the story of Sara as she lives in an English boarding school whilst her Father is working in India. Sara has everything she could ever ask for, her Father wouldn't want her to go without - but when the school gets news that her Father has passed away Sara's happy life takes a turn for the worse. Forced to work as a maid and sent to live in the attic Sara can't see things getting any better - but some unexpected help is on the way. Will life ever be the same?

I think I'm right in saying that the ending of this book is slightly different from the film adaptation? Even with the differences I still took a lot of enjoyment from this book. It gave me all the nostalgic feels and I know this is definitely one that I'll be keeping for future re-reads.

دارم به این نتیجه میرسم کتاب‌های فرانسس هاجسن برنت واقعا خاصیت درمانی دارن.
درمان غصه، ناامیدی، تنهایی، یخ زدگی قلب...
و البته بسیار اعتیاد آور!

This was actually really nice. An uplifting tale, where the heroine wins out and the villain fails (screw you Miss Minchen!)
Sara Crewe is a well off young lady, whose father sends her to a boarding school in London so she can be educated.
Despite her upbringing being given her every hearts desire, Sara doesn't act like a brat. She shares what she has with the other girls - apart from two awful jealous ones. (There's always a vindictive girl and her sidekick).
So when her father dies suddenly having lost their fortune Sara is reduced to a life of servitude and hunger.
Despite this she pretends in her heart that she is a princess just going through hard times and that things will improve.
It's a wonderful story with an ending that everyone would love. It restores faith in karma and good triumphing over bad. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Oh my goodness I absolutely adored this! This brought me right back to childhood since I loved the movie as a kid, so glad the book is just as good!!

'She liked books more than anything else...'

Alongside The Secret Garden, A Little Princess is one of my favourite books. One of those ones where every page seems to resonate completely, and one that I've read so many times that I've lost count. It has never lost its magic.

Sara Crewe is one of the characters I hold most dear, out of all the books I've ever read, she is one of the few that seems to have maintained a permanent residence in my heart and mind. I identified fiercely with her as child, and that feeling remains, even though I am now so much older than her. She is wonderful, dignified, and strange.

I was fascinated with the doll her father gives her early on in the book, Emily, with her custom-made outfits and excessive finery. He is ludicrously wealthy and indulges her absurdly, but Sara is so gracious and aware of the luck of her position in life that it doesn't feel like poor parenting, just the actions of a devoted father with a lot of money to spend! She could so easily be spoiled, but isn't. In many ways she is the serious adult, while he is the excitable child.

I won't detail the plot, but despite knowing it by heart I get completely absorbed by it every time I read. I love everything about it. Sara is a wonderfully good child, but she never feels false.

'Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.'

That quote is probably one of many reasons why she feels like such a kindred spirit to me!

A Little Princessis one of those childhood reads which have made a strong impact in my mind. I loved this book so much as a child. I was fascinated with Sara, the "little princess" who was reduced almost to the level of a servant and then miraculously restored to be a "princess" once again. It was like reading a fairy tale.

On the second read, as a mature adult, I felt the story is a little too good to be true. However, I still liked Sara. Her strength and courage to endure life through misfortunes was a lesson to all. Her patience in the face of cold and cruel treatment and her kindness even at her deepest sufferings is admirable. I'm really glad that Frances Hodgson Burnett created such a model character as Sara and authored this beautiful story to inspire many children and young girls to try to be a little princess in their own light, for the message is clear: every one of us is a princess at heart and a princess in our own right.

UNPOPULAR OPINION TIME. Sorry folks.

Meet the characters:

Sara aka the Little Princess is described as (and I'm only using words written explicitly in the book): thin, pale, with striking green eyes too big for her face (now I know where so many YA heroine's descriptions come from LOL), clever, good, serious, quick at her lessons, proud, brave, generous, hospitable, unconquerable, amiable, good-tempered, having good manners. She speaks fluent French, though she'd never learned it. She also speaks fluent Hindi.

Sara's father is described as young, beautiful, nice and clever.



Ermengarde (aka Sara's best friend) is explicitly described as fat, stupid, not clever, having a slow little mind, vulgar, forgetful and forgettable.

Lottie is another one of Sara's friends, a young child. She's also fat and stupid, but also ill-tempered and capricious, prone to throwing tantrums.

Beckie, aka the servant, is another Sara's friend. She's always described as poor-poor-poor Becky. Also stupid.

Lavinia, aka the nemesis, is described as horrid, nasty, priggish, sneering, and jealous.

Miss Minchin, aka the headmistress, is described as rude, acid, harsh, domineering, hard-hearted, mean, vulgar. Also, she doesn't know French and doesn't try to learn it, being the headmistress of a top school for young ladies in XIX England. Hmmm...

Cook is described as vulgar and insolent.

Beggar girl seen on the street: with a stupid look of suffering, frightful, little ravening savage, poor little wild animal.

Do you see a pattern here? I do.

1) Sara is a total Mary Sue, so is her kin (dad). They are oh-so-clever (even though Father never set aside any of his money for his daughter in case something happened, didn't even pay her school forward for even a day. Is that very clever?)

2) Sara's friends are all fat and stupid, and their only redeeming quality is that they worship her and trail her like puppies with unwavering loyalty and admiration.

3) Sara's enemies are all dumb and rude.

Do I have to say I didn't adore a book with such characters?

WHAT ABOUT THE PLOT?

So. Sara is awesome and rich. She briefly becomes poor but stays awesome. Her friends continue to worship her; her enemies expose their shallow, awful true natures. Then Sara becomes rich again, remaining awesome as ever, and punishing all who were mean to her. Yup, Sara never changes in her awesomeness, she doesn't need a character arc. Instead, the whole world around her makes an arc. Brilliant.

Don't even get me started that a child who has always been given all she wants, has never heard the word "no" and had -literally- servants and slaves at her beck and call - isn't spoiled, but is instead wise and teaches her wisdom to the adults around her. Sure, because wisdom isn't something you learn through error and hardship. You're just born with it if you're a true Princess inside.

WHAT MADE ME WANT TO GOUGE MY EYES OUT

Was the complete and unwavering snobbism of Sara and the author.

"It's not your fault that you are stupid" - says Sara to her BFF Ermengarde. How nice and kind, right?

I tried not to be a princess. I tried! - but failed. Who could blame you, Sara?

I can give buns and bread to the populace! - says Sara exuberantly, when she becomes rich again.

"You couldn't look like a street beggar, you haven't a street beggar face," "...clothes to make her look somehow like a servant" - um, so what is a "beggar face" and what do servants look like? Not like humans, just in different clothes?

Everyone keeps beating themselves up about how much Sara is working (at the time she is poor), but no one pays any mind to Becky, who is of comparable age and actually works more and also harder. Sara deserves all the sympathy because she used to be rich, you see! The whole London filled with hungry children working way too hard is of no concern because they look like servants and have beggar faces.

Miss Minchin is portrayed as a monster because she made Sara work when she turned from crazy rich to a beggar. Sara is, in fact, indebted to Minchin, because not only did her father not pay forward, he also didn't cover some hefty bills. Minchin does a good thing not throwing Sara out and also adapting her to a change of station. Because her station is indeed very much changed. What should she have done? Ignored reality, to make Sara face it later, even more harshly? Sure, Minchin could have been softer to a child who's just lost her father. But of course, the author wouldn't have that.

So I absolutely HATED every page of this book. As I hated Little Women and Black Beauty, as a matter of fact. Maybe catching up on children's classics I haven't read is a bad idea.

P.S. (20.07.2019) In fairness, I've just finished a different book by Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden - which is a children's classic as well. And I loved it and gave it 5 stars. So it seems too early to give up on the genre or even the author. The Little Princess was just not for me.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Genre:
Classic + Children

This is my first reread for this beautiful classic and it is still as fresh as I read it the first time. I got this beautiful leather-bound edition by Barnes and Noble. Love the gorgeous cover and the illustrations. I am currently watching the Japanese anime and it is as good as the book.

The book has lots of interesting cultural references from India, England, and France. All are there and very subtle. This is the story of a battle between good and evil. greed and kindness. The main character Sara has lots of goodness inside her. The anime adaptation shows this more than the movie adaptation. That innocence and kindness towards everybody are depicted in several situations in the book.

Some readers can't help it but feel that the story might be exaggerated at times and over the top at other times, but for me, the drawbacks are very little compared to the number of the valuable lessons that this story exhibits. And those lessons are suited for both children and adults.

That one should never see a film adaptation of a book, without first having read the original, is an idea so unconsciously accepted in my circle of family and friends that it usually admits no debate. But for every rule there are exceptions, and happily for my childhood, Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess was one of them. I had little taste for sentimental fiction as a child (oh, the irony!), and might have remained indifferent to Burnett's work, had I not seen the brilliant Wonderworks television adaptation of the novel. Released in 1987, it is the only decent film version ever made, and prompted me to read the book, followed in quick succession by n  The Secret Gardenn and n  Little Lord Fauntleroyn. Re-read countless times since, they have given me many hours of pleasure, winning a permanent place among my favorite books...

The story of a young girl who comes face to face with the cruel, mercenary side of society, A Little Princess has always struck me as a tale of moral courage, simultaneously conventional and subversive. Sara Crewe is the daughter of privilege, despite her temporary poverty and genuine suffering, but she also exhibits a very democratic sensibility, and her behavior is not dictated by monetary concerns. She is as much a friend to poor Becky before the loss of her fortune, as she is afterward; just as she is with Ermengarde. She is, moreover, somewhat disdainful of adult authority, as exemplified by her relationship with Miss Minchin, whose initial "friendliness" she (rightfully) mistrusts. Successful as a portrait of a particular time and place, Burnett's A Little Princess also has qualities that give it a decidedly modern feeling...

Addendum: Having just reread this childhood favorite, for our January discussion over at A Thrilling Term at Goodreads: The Girls' School-Story Group, I was struck by the many plot elements that are common in the genre, from the central conceit of a student whose circumstances are greatly reduced, and must work at the school (think Juliet Carrick, in n  The School at the Chaletn, although Madge Bettany is no Miss Minchin), to the idea of one girl who plays "mother" to the younger ones (think L.T. Meade's n  The Little School-Mothers: A Story for Girlsn). My new-found familiarity with the genre definitely increased my appreciation of Burnett's classic, which now seemed, not only to be an immensely satisfying story, in its own right, but an interesting example of its genre.

Idealizowanie bohaterki i stawianie jej ze skrajnymi bohaterami (złymi, GRUBYMI, najgłupszymi w rodzinie etc) było nie do zniesienia, ale mimo wszystko podziwiam pióro tej autorki za opisy przyrody i ciepło. Dzieciom polecam czytać z rodzicem, który naprostuje kilka tych kwestii, które się po prostu źle zestarzały.

The perfect fairy tale told without sentimentality or moralisation. Absolutely beautiful.