The Princess Blog

Over the years, I frequently referenced the mermaid stories by my long-time friend, Kae-Leah Williamson . Today, she has completed her longest mermaid book yet, Pearlina and the Water Faery , which is free to read on Wattpad! This is the latest story in her series of reimagined fairy tales that take place in undersea fantasy kingdoms of merfolk and talking fish. Pearlina  is a loose retelling of "Thumbelina"  that ties into the other books Kae-Leah has written on Wattpad and includes tons of Easter egg-style references to Don Bluth , Hans Christian Andersen, and "The Little Mermaid."  Over the time I have known Kae-Leah, she has grown exponentially as a writer, and this is her best work yet. When an ancient mermaid mourns the distant loss of her daughter, a prince's favor grants her a magic shell promised to grant her heart's desire. From the shell emerges Pearlina, a dark-skinned mermaid the size of a Barbie doll. Pearlina helps to care for her mother in th...

Disney was once famous for producing the most screen-accurate adaptations of well-known fairy tales, but their mission has strayed in recent years . Their current fairy tales are either soulless remakes of their animated classics  or stories that shy so far from the original source material that they can barely be considered adaptations. Nowadays, if you want to see classic stories from the past  brought to life on screen, you must turn to other studios. In a way, this post is the opposite of my "Ten Alternatives to Disney's Live-Action Remakes"  since that was a list of movies that were more creative and original with their ideas, and these are movies that stick as close to the source as possible. If you want to see the stories from your childhood brought to life on screen, this is the post for you. Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (1957) Disney produced a beautiful remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella  starring Brandy in 1997, but the first produc...

A Wingless Hope  by Sydney Winward  is a retelling of "Thumbelina" from the Hope Ever After series , which supports Operation Underground Rescue  to help fight against child sex trafficking. This is the fourth book I've read from this series and the second adaptation  I've read of "Thumbelina." One reason authors tend to shy away from this story could be that it contains more high fantasy than the average fairy tale, which makes it perfect for Hope Ever After. All the books I've read in this series so far  plant additional magic lore into the fabric of the stories they tell, and this book is no exception. Where the original fairy tale was simple and doesn't always make sense, this version creates an entire culture around Thumbelina's race including two different types of pixies to explain why she was born without wings. Briar is a lost princess  whose flower seed was stolen away by a bird before she was born, causing her to grow up alone in th...

Odette turned into a swan. Ariel turned into a human. Tiana turned into a frog. Thumbelina turned into a faery . Transformation is such a huge theme among fairy tales that it is practically embedded into their DNA. If you think beautiful transformation sequences are just a visual motif, you would only be half right. This theme is so common among fables because it represents a storytelling technique that has existed ever since stories started being told. Every good story takes a character on a complete journey, whether physical or metaphorical, that changes them by the time they reach its end. Likewise, each princess or prince who has transformed into their final form by the end of the movie leans a powerful lesson from their experiences. We see that lesson visually through the magic of animation and visual effects. For me, transformation sequences are the ultimate high point of traditional animation . Every fairy tale princess begins her story as a sheltered ingenue  who i...

Today is the day!  Disney's new streaming service,  Disney+ , is now available on smart devices everywhere. The highly anticipated launch did not go as smoothly as planned with the servers crashing earlier this morning, probably due to everyone wanting to be the first to access its content. That snag got fixed in a timely manner, but I can't say the same for the password issue. It seems like I need to reset my password almost every time I log on from a new device. Putting all of that aside, the app works exactly as advertised but with somewhat less content than expected. Initially, Disney claimed that they would be releasing their full library of movies, televisions shows, and specials, but it looks like we're going to have to settle for a decent-sized chunk of them instead. There were a few movies and shows added since the preview that launched in the Netherlands a couple months ago, but not quite as much as I was hoping for. I don't consider myself a Disney expert by...

Japanese company  Kuraudia Co. recently partnered with Disney  to create a new line of gorgeous Disney Princess wedding dresses. This is far from the only company that makes wedding gowns inspired by our favorite animated heroines. Though they  recently went out of business , the popular American bridal chain, Alfred Angelo,  had recently revealed several new designs  for Disney Princess inspired dresses that were more modern-looking than the ones from Japan. Designer Kirstie Kelly also unveiled a  Disney Princess inspired collection  several years ago, which has since been discontinued. Though the Americanized versions of these dresses hardly resemble classic  princess fashion , the correlation between weddings and princesses seems to date back an eternity. Do the two concepts go hand-in-hand like a bride and groom at the altar? Let's find out. Since the very beginning, most fairy tales that end with "happily ever after" included a wedding...

Did you know that yesterday was Don Bluth's 80th birthday? In case you're out of the loop, Don Bluth  is an animator who used to work for Disney until he teamed up with Gary Goldman and made a whole bunch of hit animated features on his own in the '80s and '90s. He is responsible for  Anastasia , one of my favorite animated princess movies of all time as well as  Thumbelina . To top things off, he created a cool animated game called Dragon's Lair that was in arcades and on laser disc. Despite his age, Don and Gary are still working hard to bring their fans great animation. They recently started  an Indiegogo campaign  to do a full-length animated feature film of Dragon's Lair . Don Bluth is very loyal to his fans and responds to nearly all animation-related inquiries on his website . In my opinion, Don Bluth's greatest masterpiece of all time was Anastasia  in 1997. The movie used state-of-the-art technology for the time period. I wasn't v...

One trait that is synonymous among nearly every animated princess is her beautiful voice. I have wanted to do a tribute to some of my favorite princess actresses every since I started this blog. Princesses have inspired me to sing loud and proud throughout the course my life and have also gotten me through some difficult times. Their sweet and powerful voices were full of emotion and helped me relate to them and feel more deeply than I would have ever thought possible. These are some of my favorite rock star voice artists who have each voiced multiple princesses and have had the biggest impact on what a modern princess should sound like. Leading the pack is the legendary Tara Strong  who has voiced an insanely large library of iconic characters, including not one, not two, not three, but four princesses. Currently, she is most famous for her work as Twilight Sparkle, who became a princess in the third season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic . I'm looking forward to he...

The concept of a "faery princess" is often pegged as the most feminine thing a girl can dress up as. Yet, there are surprisingly few stories about faery princesses. The ones that do exist are somewhat obscure. Sure, there's Queen Titania from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," but that story contains no faery princesses, and her character is not referenced often in fiction. The term "faery" is derived from the "fae folk,"  who were mischievous sprites from old European mythology that liked to prank mortals with their powers. They did not necessarily have wings, but this changed during the era of of  J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan  around the early 1900s, which portrayed Tinker Bell as a tiny winged woman. Though "fairy" is the more common spelling (even though fairy tales rarely actually have faeries in them), "faery" is more proper because it's closer to the root word, "fae." Surprisingly, Di...