Comments on: Top 100 Children’s Novels #56: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

By: Little Princess, A | LitWits Workshops

Little Princess, A | LitWits Workshops — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:43:02 +0000

[...] (Goodreads) Blog post “Top 100 Children’s Novels #56″ (School Library Journal) Blog post “A Princess Inside” by Lisa Francesca [...]

By: bob

bob — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 22:11:06 +0000

AMAZING BOOK!?!:) <3

By: Victor

Victor — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 01:38:43 +0000

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By: Louise

Louise — Thu, 31 May 2012 14:25:51 +0000

This book is one of my favorites (I’m reading The Secret Garden to my girls right now, and saving this one for this winter). I even wrote a long blog post a while back about how Sara shows that it takes unusual grace and determination to be a princess – as opposed to the awful message they showed in the ’95 movie, that “every little girl is a princess.” Hideous change!

I own the Tasha Tudor-illustrated edition, and nothing else ever seems quite right to me.

By: Lisa Jenn Bigelow

Lisa Jenn Bigelow — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:32:01 +0000

I love A Little Princess, too. I saw three movie versions as a kid (the two with the trailers above, plus the Wonder Works version), and it always drove me crazy when they had Sara crying prematurely. In the book, her stoicism in the face of hardship is such a big deal, so that it’s a really powerful moment when she finally breaks.

By: Genevieve

Genevieve — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:43:20 +0000

A Little Princess shaped my heart, truly. Thank you, Mitali, for that lovely essay. I bumped this from my list at the last minute in favor of Aiken — A Little Princess was dearer to my heart as a child, but I was afraid Wolves wouldn’t make the list and I knew Little Princess would.

It’s funny, looking at your covers for all the books, it looks like I had the Dell Yearling cover almost every time. I quite like the Puffin Classics and Penguin Classics ones above (showing Sara later in the book), but I can’t imagine that the Aladdin Classics one would entice many kids to read it.

Loved the 1995 movie — I thought some changes made it better for modern audiences — making Becky African-American and much less servile, adding the scenes from Indian stories — and I don’t mind changes when they work. Could’ve done without the roof-climbing peril at the end and especially without the father turning up again, but overall it was a lovely movie, especially visually with the green tones for Miss Minchin’s Academy and the rich colors for the story of Rama. And Liesel Mathews and Vanessa Lee Chester were very very good, as was the father.

I hope to see the Andrew Lippa musical one day.

By: Jennifer Schultz

Jennifer Schultz — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:54:47 +0000

Wasn’t on my list, but it’s a favorite. I love it more than The Secret Garden (of which I am quite fond). I know the 1995 movie was quite different from the book, but I think it’s a lovely film.