The Princess in Black and the Perfect Princess Party

Fun read. Great for 6-7 year old.

These are the most engaging children’s books I have ever encountered. Each volume is a perfect length, long enough to have the child become invested in the story but not too long as to lose their attention. Each takes me about 15- 20 minutes to read to my daughter (allowing time for illustration investigation and funny voices, of course). The humor is clever and cute and makes bedtime less dreadful for all involved. The characters are mostly female and they are all strong, independent and interesting. My daughter is 5 now and I would say kids 4-8 would get the most of these books.

This is an excellent book for a child just beginning to read on her own. Excellent repetition in sentence structure to help build confidence. Many sight words, but enough higher difficulty to keep things interesting; all the flower names tying to the pictures was a brilliant touch. High-interest pictures on every page - my daughter loved tracking Princess Magnolia's increasing dishevelment through the story. Multi-layered story with several points of interest to tie back to the Perfect Pink Party storyline. And my daughter loved that it ended with an act of kindness from one of those goat-eating monsters. She read it to me (with help) at two chapters a night and it kept her interest for the whole week! She couldn't wait to reach the "twinkle twinkle little SMASH - best martial arts move ever. Highly recommended for princess-obsessed emerging readers. (Review from the mom of the family)

We love Shannon Hale, and her husband adds just that little bit of dad humor to the mix making this series a pure delight. Even better, the illustrator captures this wonderful tale perfectly. My 3 year old begged for me to read this to her every night for weeks until I finally decided I had enough. Few books make it past two nights in a row at our house, so that is really saying something. It had gotten to the point where my daughter could recite the whole thing by memory, so I now have her "read it to herself" instead. Also, my older kids (13, 11, and 9) who often heard me reading it to her didn't moan and complain like they do with most of my 3 year old's book choices. That's how good it is. There are very few children's books that I would put in this category, which includes Dr. Seuss and little else.

I bought the first book in this series for my five year old when the illustrator visited my son's school. LeUyen Pham took the time to draw a picture of my daughter in the front of our book. We were all incredibly impressed with her. She's so nice, personable and fun. Anyway, my daughter loved the first book so much (the pictures and storyline) that she asked for us to buy this one too. We love them and will continue to keep purchasing more Princess in Black books in the future.

I'll start by saying that this is one of my all time favorite early chapter book series and all libraries that serve young readers should have it. Not only is Princess Magnolia the perfect blend of beautiful, kind, sparkly princess but she's also rough and tough when she needs to be. After all, those monsters don't seem to speak any other language, although hysterics seems to have an impact as well. Princess Magnolia does her best to be in two places at the same time (her birthday party and the goat field) but things just get harder and harder until finally she just loses it. I think anyone whose been pushed too far can relate to Magnolia's frustration, adult or child. I've also found when reading this out loud (which is an utterly delightful experience, especially if you use varying tones) that girls and boys love this equally. And why not, it's got enough princess frills to satisfy the softest heart and enough fighting and action to satisfy the adventurous heart. Highly recommended.

Good as usual! But The Princess in Black constantly fighting similar monsters is getting a little bit old. I’d like to see some more variety in this series!

I bought this as a gift for an 8 year-old girl (2nd grader) for Christmas. She loved it so much that she read it at least three times within the first week. Considering that this book was competing with other Christmas gifts, I view it as a huge it. She and her little sister have been playing hero-princess a lot, too. I've already ordered more Princess in Black books. This book contains 15 chapters, each about 4-5 pages long. A serious child reader will ignore the chapters and plow on through. I love the chapter breaks because they allow me to tell her to stop after X chapters to get ready for bed, pick up toys, eat, etc. Overall, the book seemed right at her reading level. There are some more difficult words, particularly some of the proper names, e.g. "Frimplepants" and "Euphoria". This added to the mystery and excitement for her. This book wasn't too "easy" but had just the right amount of challenges.