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Ivy's Ever After
Dawn Lairamore
Holiday House, 320 pages

Ivy's Ever After
Dawn Lairamore
Dawn Lairamore grew up all over the world in a military family. Eventually they settled in California, where she received a degree in English from the University of California, Davis. Then she worked as an editorial assistant for a small publishing house and later as a technical writer for a software conglomerate. She decided to return to school to get a paralegal degree.

Dawn Lairamore Website
ISFDB Bibliography

Past Feature Reviews
A review by John Enzinas

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As you might expect, Ivy's Ever After by Dawn Lairamore is a fairy tale about a girl named Ivy. Like many of her kin, she's a princess whose mother died in childbirth and who was left with a father who had lost his mind from grief. Due to his mental absence and her disinclination to listen to her nursemaid, Ivy grew up as something of a wild child, fond of running around with her friends and much less interested in being a quiet princess as her nursemaid would prefer.

Then she discovers the terrible secret of the kingdom. On her thirteenth birthday, she gets locked up in a tower with a dragon for a guard until someone comes along and kills the dragon and rescues her (and as part of the deal marries her and inherits the kingdom). Ivy is, of course, not terribly keen on this idea but on this one thing her father is adamant. Then comes the first prince. He is a terrible man with terrible plans for the kingdom which Ivy discovers before she is sent to the tower. She decides to escape and somehow rescue the kingdom from its terrible fate. In escaping she befriends the dragon sent to guard her and together they set about to stop the prince, save the kingdom and better the condition of both their peoples.

This is not a complicated story. There are no surprising twists, no astonishing reveals, no subversion of typical fairy tale tropes (other than the tomboy princess but that's kind of a modern trope). Ivy faces a series of challenges and overcomes them with the tools she has been given. In the end, the day is saved and every one lives if not happily, then at least no less happy than they were before the story started (except for the bad guy).

However, given that the book is aimed at pre-teen girls, I think it nails the level of complexity that it was going for perfectly. It has good clear messages about self reliance, acceptance of people who are different and coming to terms with the unreasonable demands of the real world. That last message is, I think, particularly useful. I'm looking forward to reading this one to my just-turned-seven daughter.

Copyright © 2010 John Enzinas

John Enzinas reads frequently and passionately. In his spare time he plays with swords.


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