Princess Arebeena is preparing for her birthday party with her friend, Isabella, when Arebeena realizes that she doesn’t have her tiara. Her parents have hidden the tiara and directed her on a treasure hunt. The girls set out, first searching the castle and then the grounds. Fern the frog directs them to the wise barn owl, Saffi. Saffi introduces the girls to the crystal fairies. They give her a special gift, but they don’t have the tiara. They will have to face a dragon before they can complete the treasure hunt.

This is a story that shares positive aspects of friendship and courage. This is nice ‘princess' story. Little girls are likely to really enjoy the story and the soft, pleasant illustrations. There are longer text sections which I didn’t think really would work for the intended audience age, especially if the child tries to read by him/herself. Still it is a cute story and can be read by a parent to their child(ren).

Source: NetGalley 2019. My Rating 3.75.

What a lovely story! Children are sure to love this superb and fabulous modern fairy tale! Thank you for sharing it with us! I'm looking forward to discovering other books by Fiona! :) I warmly recommend this great story of friendship, magic and sharing!

Thank you to NetGalley for a Copy of this book. I received this in exchange for my honest review. As a mother of two young girls, I am always looking for books for them. This could be a fun book that I read to them since they are only 4 and 2 yo. This would also make a great book for new readers expanding their vocabulary. There are enough words that they would feel confident reading on their own as a first or second grader and there are fun words with the names and the fairies for young readers to expand upon.

I found the main character a little too timid. I'm all about my girls finding other women who they can look to for a strong female example, Princess Arebeena didn't really fill that rold. However, she was kind to everyone she came across so I guess that would be a positive example in that sense.

This book includes a Princess on a fun journey and comes across fairies and dragons. Girls would definitely be motivated to read this as this would be a great story to step into.

Book feature to appear on my children's/middle grade/ young adult blog soon.

https://nataliaheaney.wordpress.com/

Pros: The idea behind the content was there. Things like being kind to others, and to assist whenever you can if meaningful in the end, but that's about it.

Cons: This book is not for kids between the ages of 5-7. It reads more for kids in their preteen years. I wanted to be sure, so I enlisted the help of my younger family members that are in middle and junior high school. Each person said the names were hard to pronounce, and some of the verbs didn't make sense. They each though the book was too long to be looking for one item. Also, the characters acted as if they were adults and kids. Again, this book is for the parent to read to their child, but not for a child looking to read it for themselves.

To be fair, I'm not the audience for this. It says so right in the synopsis! However, I think it's also kind of presumptuous to state that this book "will be enjoyed by children aged 5-7 years"; while I'm sure some kids that age will enjoy it, others will likely be bored by the lacklustre plot and bland illustrations.

The book isn't even about the fairies. It's about Princess Arebeena and her parents' "treasure hunt". Part of my problem here is that, due to the format of the e-book, I couldn't see much of the illustrations, except for a sliver of the top of each one... so I didn't get to actually read the invitation from Princess Arebeena's parents regarding the treasure hunt. (I gather, from reading the rest of the text, that her parents stole her own tiara and hid it in a dragon's cave for her to find. What kind of twisted mind game is that?)

Anyway, Princess Arebeena and her friend Isabella take a break from brushing their hair to go in search of the tiara. They ask an owl who lives in a lollipop tree (because... of course; we can't have a self-published picture book without some sort of ridiculous, cloying plot point that children are supposed to love) and the owl directs them to some pebbles. When the girls find the right one, it turns out to be the home of the crystal fairies, who are all named after precious jewels in rainbow colours. The fairies then lead the girls to the dragon's cave, where they find the tiara without too much trouble (the dragon is an employee of the king and queen, and not a threat). Of course, the tiara has been bejewelled, so Ruby (the red crystal fairy) waves her magic wand and turns Princess Arebeena's pink dress red to match. Then the dragon takes them back to the castle and they party. The end.

I just can't get excited about a plot like this. There's no real danger, there's no conflict (other than the stupid task set by Princess Arebeena's parents), and the whole thing just seems really shallow. It's all about finding this tiara. I don't know anything about the characters. Is Princess Arebeena a good person? What about the king and queen? (I suspect not, if they like to steal their daughter's possessions and then send her into dragon caves to look for them.) Not every picture book needs to have a deep moral message, but I kind of wanted more than just a couple of vapid girls searching for a pretty piece of jewellery.

Aside from the snooze-inducing plot, the writing is pretty weak. The girls come across as wooden, and they vacillate from being wimpy to just going with the flow (I don't think I'd consider any of their actions particularly brave). One character smirks her speech at one point, and there are plenty of other dialogue tags that are more obtrusive than informative.

The illustrations... To keep it simple, let me just say that they look like something that came out of a middle-school art class. (What I can see of them, anyway.) Princess Arebeena looks like Barbie, and appears to be an adult. The pictures don't really match the text in that way, because what adult woman spends the day searching for lollipop trees and trying to find a tiara that her parents stole? Any self-respecting woman would've been walking up to King David and Queen Trixie and saying, "I don't have time for this, Mum and Dad. I've got a lot to do today, especially since the rulers of this kingdom apparently have nothing better to do than play silly games."

This book is just really weak. While the aspect of the seven colour-coded fairies could've been interesting, they're little more than an embellishment on a boring story. Even their presence doesn't make this into anything more than a bland, superficial slog of a read.