Princess Pulverizer 6 – The Dragon’s Tale

Nancy Krulik's The Dragon's Tale is the sixth Princess Pulverizer book, a cheesy quest story for 7 year olds about a dragon who dreams of being a chef.

What happens

Princess Pulverizer wants to go to Knight School. Her father will only let her go once she's finished a Quest of Kindness, eight good deeds to cure her of being selfish, spoiled and snobby. By this book she's done five.

Doing them means keeping her friends happy. Lucas is a nervous knight-in-training. Dribble is a dragon who makes the most amazing grilled cheese sandwiches. The trouble is that nobody in the village of Beeten Wheeten will go anywhere near a dragon's food stand, let alone buy something from it. Dribble cries huge purple tears.

The princess has a magic mirror that shows the future, so she checks when Dribble will cheer up. Instead it shows Lucas flying through the air! Then a hopeless juggler called The Amazing Ralf picks Lucas out of the crowd for his big trick.

So the princess has an idea. Dribble can cook hidden behind the trees while she and Lucas wait on the customers out in the open. Their restaurant in a field is a hit! Nobody needs to know the chef is a dragon.

But Ralf is furious with them, and he's promising to shut the restaurant down. Then the mirror shows something much worse. An old barn is on fire, and Dribble is standing right beside it with smoke coming out of his snout. Surely not Dribble?

What's lovely here is that the princess is honest about her own flaws. She's upset for Dribble, but she's also worried about her good deeds. She doesn't want to admit she's secretly hoping for a nasty customer to deal with. Your reader will probably recognise that mix of kind and a little bit selfish, and it's funny rather than preachy.

The jokes come thick and fast too, from the terrible juggling to a customer who orders baked brie and gets nachos.

If you've got a reader who likes their princesses messy, loud and not at all ladylike, this series is a real treat.

What to read next

To see how the quest began, go back to Grilled Cheese and Dragons. It opens with Princess Serena swinging from the rafters at the Royal School of Ladylike Manners and landing in a bowl of pudding.