The Little Princess

To balance all of this extravagant fashion, I must interject a little literature.  I just finished reading The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett to my oldest daughter.  It was the story of a girl who goes from this -

to this -

I've never been a big fan of my girls playing "princess", because I believe that is quite a self-centered way to think.  So, I resisted reading this book for a long time.  But something made me finally pick it up at the library, and it was SO GOOD.  The main character Sara doesn't try to be a princess that is served by everyone else but rather a princess who exhibits self-control and kindness and has the power to do good in the face of evil. 

She says, "Whatever comes cannot alter one thing.  If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside.  It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it." 

And then later when she gives most of her food to the poor little child pictured above even though she is starving herself, she says, "If I am a princess - when they were poor and driven from their thrones - they always shared - with the populace - if they met one poorer and hungrier than themselves. They always shared." 

Now that's the kind of princess I like.