Once Upon a Marigold Book

OH. MY. CUTENESS.

This book was awesome! And, okay, I DO happen to have a thing for cheesy young-adult romance fairy-tales, but still, it was really clever and totally adorable! And CLEAN. I wouldn't hesitate to read this book to an 8-year-old (or younger, if they were interested). It was predictable (I guessed who Christian was in the first chapter, but whatever... the goal of the book wasn't to be cryptic), but it was just so sweet and innocent and SO funny!

Okay, so it's about this 6-year-old boy, Christian, who runs away from home and ends up living with and being raised by a Troll, Edric (Ed) in a cave. The kid turns out to be quite nice and resourceful (i.e. he's an inventor). Ed realizes he's gotta raise the kid right, so he gets a book of etiquette, and teaches the kid out of that. But the best part is that Ed has like ZERO grasp of clichés, and is CONSTANTLY mixing them up (like, "I can see I'm beating my head against a dead horse" and "After all, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the eager beaver.") Oh boy, those were great...

So 13 years later, Christian (sometimes Chris) is a strapping guy... haha... And he has this telescope, and has been (very innocently) admiring the pretty little brunette princess (Marigold, 17) whose balcony happens to face the cave... ;) In fact, he's so taken with her that he starts sending her messages via carrier pigeon. Heehee... But the pigeons can only hold a piece of paper big enough to hold 3 lines of text (and later 3 per side, I think), so they have these TINY conversations... It's REALLY cute. They become best friends, even though they've never met.

Then Christian and Ed decide he needs to go out on his own and experience the world, so he gets a job at the castle, and all sorts of craziness ensues... Marigold's mom is trying to hook her up with any eligible bachelor who will have her, and Christian is REALLY jealous... *cute!!* And it's really fun...

Anyway, it goes on from there, but I don't want to give TOO much away. I'm REALLY looking forward to Twice Upon a Marigold... It looks really great, too!