The Rescue Princesses 6 – The Magic Rings

Paula Harrison's The Magic Rings is a horsey Rescue Princesses story for 7 year olds about a little sister who's handed a big secret and is sure she'll be brilliant at it.

What happens

This is the sixth book, and it's a fresh start with a new team. Princess Emily is off to the Royal Academy for Princesses. Before she goes, she tells her little sister Lottie everything about the Rescue Princesses and gives her four jewelled rings.

Find some friends you trust, she says. Train hard. Be careful.

Lottie hears the first two bits. She's quite sure she'll make a better Rescue Princess than her sister anyway (she might be right, but she might not).

There's just one problem. The rings are supposed to light up so the girls can talk to each other. Lottie presses them over and over again and nothing happens.

Next stop is the Royal Dance Festival in the kingdom of Peronia. Lottie would much rather be anywhere but the Bobbing Dance, so she slips out to the stables. There she meets a grumpy stable boy called Peter and Twinkle, a two-week-old foal with a white star on her forehead.

Then she has to find a team. Isabella is friendly but keeps knocking things over. Amina is very shy. Rosalind argues about absolutely everything. Are they really Rescue Princess material?

Lottie is SUCH fun to follow. She's bouncy and bold and a bit bossy, and she rushes into things without thinking. If you've got a little sibling at home who's desperate to do what the big one does, you'll recognise her!

There's a proper baddie too. Lady Slyden borrows the queen's horses and is far too quick with her whip. When the girls overhear her plotting to load horses into a van at midnight, nobody will listen. The queen sends them away for having bare feet!

So it's black dance dresses, ninja moves and a midnight trip to the stables.

A word about Lady Slyden. Her cruelty is talked about rather than shown in detail. Peter says she whips the horses too hard and we hear her whip crack. A big horse also rears up over the girls on a narrow lane. Animal lovers will be cross on the horses' behalf, but nothing gory happens on the way to the midnight trip.

It's the American edition, so it's Mom and a flashlight, and Lady Slyden rides in "riding pants". Nothing that will trip anyone up for long.

What to read next

Emily's own first adventure is in the library too. The Secret Promise is where she meets the friends whose rings end up in Lottie's hands, at a grand ball Lottie had to miss with chickenpox.