The Princess and the Wizard - Julia Donaldson, Lydia Monks

...trouble tracking it down on the high street and one store even asked me if it existed. I managed to get hold of it in Waterstones in the end and it was worth the hunt.

Story
This story is about a little princess that is having a birthday party. Just as the party starts a wicked wizard turns up and asks why he is not invited to her party. She he informs him that he was no invited because wizards turn people to stone. He informs ...
...Just as he turns to the princess to turn her to stone the princess's fairy godmother turns up and says a spell to help the princess and at which point the wizard turns the fairy godmother into stone.

He then takes the princess to his castle and locks her in his cellar. In the morning he opens the door and says he will let her escape but he will count 100 and if he finds her she has to come back. So the princess runs outside and changes ... more

Can this woman do no wrong where children books are concerned? It just seems everything she writes my daughter just loves to sit down and listen to me to read to her. So when I heard about this book I knew I had to go and get it to add to my daughters ever increasing book collection. I had a bit of trouble tracking it down on the high street and one store even asked me if it existed. I managed to get hold of it in Waterstones in the end and it was worth the hunt.

Story
This story is about a little princess that is having a birthday party. Just as the party starts a wicked wizard turns up and asks why he is not invited to her party. She he informs him that he was no invited because wizards turn people to stone. He informs her that this is true and turns all her guests into stone. Just as he turns to the princess to turn her to stone the princess's fairy godmother turns up and says a spell to help the princess and at which point the wizard turns the fairy godmother into stone.

He then takes the princess to his castle and locks her in his cellar. In the morning he opens the door and says he will let her escape but he will count 100 and if he finds her she has to come back. So the princess runs outside and changes herself into a lovely blue fish to hide in the moat. Once the wizard has counted to 100 he reads a spell from his spell book and finds the princess. He brings her back inside and locks in the kitchen over night and makes her clean the blue dirty pots and pans. The next morning he lets her escape again, once again she changes her self this time in to a yellow chick and hides in the straw and once again the wizard counts to 100 and then reads from his spell book and once again the poor princess is caught. This time she is made to mend the wizard's yellow socks.

Is the princess smart enough to escape the wizard, turn everyone back and have her birthday party? Well I want ruin the story and let you read it to find out for yourself if she does it and if so how.

Illustrations
This book is illustrated by Lydia Monks and as far as I know she has also illustrated sharing a shell by Julia Donaldson. The illustrations in this book are lovely and the glitter really adds to the book and turns it in to a real girly book, she has done the story justice.

The pictures illustrate the story well and the glitter gives details to the picture. The princess in all the pictures has glitter detail on her so when she has changed in to something, like the fish, it is easy to find her. This then gives your little girl the chance to talk about the picture and find the princess.

Price
£5.99 for paper back
£10.99 for hard back

ISBN
9781405090766

Pages
32

Publisher
Macmillan

Opinion
My daughter loved this book as soon as she saw it as is was pink and glitter was over the cover and wanted us to read it straight away. As I only given it to her at bed time known that this would happen I sat down to read it. It was a bit longer than the rest of the books she has got from Julia Donaldson as I feel it is aimed more at 4-6 years than at toddlers, still she managed to sit down and not talk the whole way through the book. Any book that can do this and is a joy to read is a brilliant book in my mind. Also it is moving away from her books where the story is like a rhyme, there are still parts of the book that still have this but not all the way through which I feel helps the little one get into older books.

This book is aimed at girls and I don't think that boys would like it much. I mainly think this as the way the story has been illustrated. I would very happily buy this book for any girl as a present for birthday or Christmas aged between 4 and 6 years old.

Please ignore the bottom as they have put in details about this being an audio book which this is not and has not be realeased as one as yet. 

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