This book is exactly what you expect from the title. A princess gets captured and instead of awaiting a prince or knight to save her, she uses her brain, her bravery, and her tenacity to save herself. This book is meant to be a reminder to girls that they do not have to wait for someone to hand something to them, they can get up and attain that dream on their own.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for the ARC. I am voluntarily reviewing this book. This is a childrens book. What a fun book!! It sort of rhymes, has loved graphics and a great message. Find the hero within yourself! Believe in yourself! Such a great message. 4 stars

Not only did I love this, my 7 year old niece thought it was worthy of a encore performance. Young people need to know they are as capable being strong and can problem solve on their own. This princess is a positive role model little girls everywhere need right now

A story with a good intention but needed a bit more polishing in its execution.

The titular princess has been captured and locked away by an unseen adversary. She initially wonders if she should wait for her father, the king of the land, or some prince to come and rescue her. But she soon decides that a better course of action is to take things in her own hands. She thus uses her brains and plots her escape.
I loved the idea. Princesses have long been written as weak and desperate, unable to do anything for themselves without a prince/king to save them. It is high time this idea is junked, and such books help. The verse on the final page is awesome.

Where the book could have worked better for me was in its layout and writing style. I am not very fond of forced rhythmic prose in picture books. The rhymes don’t flow smoothly and this jars while reading aloud. Furthermore, there are a couple of difficult words in the story that won’t work well for its little readers.

Also, there’s not much of a background to the characters or details to the plot. I know it is just a picture book but somehow the writing feel very hazy. There’s more happening in the unwritten background than on the pages. I would have loved to see a better escape plan than just something vague saying “trickery and distraction were her biggest tools”.

The illustrations are decent in terms of matching the plot. But I am sorry, they look very amateurish.
Overall, it is a very simple story but with a powerful message. This should suit early readers well. But it is not “The Paper Bag Princess”. I expected a lot more.

2.5 stars.

My thanks to Black Rose Writing and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Princess Who Was Her Own Hero”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

This is a very cute picture book. It has bright colorful illustrations with emotional facial expressions (great for children struggling with their emotions). I would love to have this book when she was a young girly girl. So, I love the idea of a princess saving herself and becoming the hero of her own story. Lead by example, our princess is confident, smart and witty. It encourages kids to believe in themselves. Don't sit around waiting for something to happen.This book is an excellent alternative to Disney's interpretation of princesses. For parents trying to encourage smart, problem-solving and independent-thinking young ladies.

I removed a star because I think children will be slightly disappointed with the missing backstory. At this age, kids ask many questions and there're some plot holes. Overall, I like the message of this book and would give it as gifts to toddler-aged children in my life.

Thank you, NetGalley and Black Rose Writing via BookBuzz, for providing me with a digital ARC for an honest review.

A free copy of this children's picture book was shared with me by the publisher - Black Rose Writing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts included are my own.

The illustrations were bright and engaging, the message was definitely age-appropriate, but the text/story itself was rather lackluster. It is told in prose with ABAB format - I think this is the right description - but the text between the rhymes was too much. When I tried to read this aloud like I would to my students, I found myself stumbling over the words. The vocabulary was excellent, but it didn't really fit the format the author was going for, in my opinion. I would never say to "dumb down" the word choice, but it just didn't flow like it should have.

I could see the illustrations really catching my students' attention, however. Loved the message that when you are in trouble, you can be your own hero. This would lend itself to a great classroom discussion or even as a mentor text for story writing.

This was a very fast-paced children's book. My child enjoyed it, but she did say she wanted more to it. There was no backstory she wanted to know how she got captured. it reminded me of The Princess from HULU. Overall it was a very cute book.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this sweet, quirky little book. I would recommend this book to all young girls who are fed up with traditional fairy tales about beautiful princesses being rescued by dashing princes and living "happily ever after" with them. The rhymes are awkward in many places but otherwise it is a very nice story about what it means to be your own hero by using your own brains and not relying on someone else to come and save you.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

The Princess who was her own hero is a cute, rhyming story about a princess who gets licked in a room in the castle by her father the king. But instead of waiting for a Prince to rescue her (as the classic fairytales predict) she decides to use her cunningness and brain to escape by herself. This is a great little empowering book for girls of today to reassure them they can do anything they put their mind to and if someone says they'll fail at something, to try even harder and prove them wrong.
I rated this down to 3 stars just because the rhyming was a bit off in places making the book flow not as smoothly as it could, but apart from that it's a great book for girls!

2.5 stars

The images are okay, but the story itself is a bit awkward. The storyline is vague, so no real details on the princess or concrete examples on how she escapes. The story rhymes, which is helpful for the age range.

It's great to see another book follow in the style of The Paper Bag Princess, where the princess is her own hero who saves herself. This is a cute little rhyming story where the captive princess outwits the prison guards and escapes without any outside help. My main criticism is that the plot is extremely vague: we are only told that the princess cleverly escapes by "trickery and distraction", but no details are provided! It seems very handwavy and highly unrealistic. It would have been nice if the princess could have outwitted the guards using a clever verbal ruse that was shared with the reader, invented a device to pick the lock, etc. As written, it almost seems that she escaped due to sheer luck, since no concrete examples of her own ingenuity are provided. Young girls reading this book will get the impression that being "smart" helps in difficult situations, but what this book is sorely lacking is an example of what such "smartness" actually looks like in practice!

The princess wakes up locked in a tower, and at first she waits for a rescuer. Then she decides that she can do it herself! So she develops a plan and executes it very well. A good lesson in taking charge over circumstances.
I thought that the versifying seemed a little contrived, but our 8y/o granddaughter liked it a lot!
The illustrations are fun, mostly simple, colorful, and forthright. Every public and school library needs a copy!
I requested and received a free temporary e-book on Adobe Digital Editions from Black Rose Writing via NetGalley. Thank you!

The best part of this little book is the illustrations – 15 of them – most of them showing our (unnamed) Princess thinking of ways to outsmart her captors, and then doing so. Unfortunately, the book does not credit the illustrator, only the writer.

The second best part of the book is the story idea – a Princess who gets captured, but uses her skills of observation and wits to rescue herself. Kids definitely need to know they can learn to problem solve, even for big, scary situations.

To me, the title and many of the 15 rhyming verses are quite clunky. Many of the poems suffer from extra words and syllables that pulled me, the reader, out of story’s rhythm. (Kids probably won’t notice, but the parent reading it should probably read it aloud to themselves first before sharing with their child.)

Five stars for the illustrations; three for the rhyming, so an average of four stars.


Note:
I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This has no bearing on my review. I never guarantee a positive rating, and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Princess Who Was Her Own Hero is a Children's Book.

Instead of the princess waiting for someone to rescue her; she finds a way to escape.

The wording rhymes, which is sometimes fun in children's books. Although some of the rhyming seems a bit to forced.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read the Advance Read Copy in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author Pedro T. Flores and to Black Rose Writing the publisher.

I enjoyed this empowering fairytale about taking charge of your life and being the hero of your own story! The rhymes were fun and I loved the art style. Move over classic fairytales, this is the book that every child needs and deserves.

Very clunky, this – it shows a princess that gets nabbed and locked up, presumably for ransom, and instead of waiting for a handsome hunk to come save the day she escapes all by herself. But the plot wants to pretend it doesn't matter why she's imprisoned, or by whom, when it does, and later on it wants us to think it doesn't matter how she bests all her captors, when it does. Quite the most amateurish art is on every second page, with the rest a four-line stanza of a narrative poem that really is all over the place with meter and rhythm, and attempts to rhyme "got this" with "cautious". There is so, so much better out there to choose from instead of this – "The Princess in Black", it's not. A generous two stars.

A very cute story about a princess who's been captured but takes her rescue into her own hands instead of waiting for a knight in shining armor!

The message was great and I liked that the princess made her own daring escape instead of having to wait for a prince or her dad to come save her. But my biggest critique is that the ratio of words to pictures was pretty uneven for a children's book, with more words than pictures.

Thank you to NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

I love the twist in a classic fairy tale! We need more princesses who save themselves and know they are capable. This book had such fun artwork I enjoyed examining the pictures along with the story. This will be one I read to my daughter frequently!