The Princess and the Goblin Book

Eight-year-old Princess Irene was... well a princess who lived outside of her father castle in a house in the countryside - if I understood correctly to improve her weak health. Goblins (or dwarves - they were the same in the tale; J.R.R. Tolkien who explained the difference between them has not been born yet)

used to be normal people that had decided they did not care much about government, taxes, and everything else, so they moved underground where they changed shape with time and became nuisance for ground dwellers.

One day Irene discovered a mysterious staircase which led her... no, not underground but quite the opposite: on the top floor of her building where she made an interesting and intriguing discovery. As the chapter about it called The Princess and'We Shall See Who I am not going to spoil it. Sufficient to say eventually the paths of Irene, her friend Curdie (a son of a local miner), and all goblins intersected in a very strange and unexpected way.

The book was supposed to be very influential with lots of famous fantasy writers giving it a nod. I would call it a fairy tale instead of fantasy and as one it is quite good and never boring to read. The reasons for 3 stars as opposed to more-deserved 4 are purely personal. The first one was an old trope with all the adults being completely retarded and only children being able to see the danger. Yes, we can be very distracted with the day-to-day routine and miss something, but we are not stupid. After all we invented marshmallow shooter:


Sorry, bad example. How is about a Segway?

I mean with obesity being on the rise in developed countries anything that makes people walk even less is a good idea, right? When I put it this way we - adults - are not that smart after all.

Another point would be more like a nitpicking. The life of miners was too idealized. Even these days a miner develops serious professional health problems; at the time the story took place these people had a very short lifespan - try to inhale dust non-stop for 8 hours daily to see what I mean and I am not even talking about explosion accidents. Sorry, but as a person who grew up in a town with lots of coal mines I could not overlook this.

The rest was fine: the writing was good enough, the characters serviceable - no more and no less that what you expect from ones in a fairy tale. The story moved along at a nice pace never coming to a screeching halt. 3 stars is my rating, but if you can overlook two problems I mentioned make it 4.