Orchard Books Dolphin Adventure: 2 (Secret Princesses)

Book

Perfect

Good

This is the second book in the “Secret Princesses,” series and follows on from, “The Magic Necklace.” In the first adventure, we met best friends, Charlotte Williams and Mia Thompson. Charlotte’s family move to America and the two girls find they are separated. However, their old babysitter, Alice, gives them two pendants to wear and these take the two girls to the Wishing Star Palace where Secret Princesses come to meet in an enchanted land. The girls find that they are potential Friendship Princesses and they have to work together to grant wishes and bring happiness. Happily deciding to become Trainee Princesses leads the girls into adventure with, of course, in true Fairy Tale fashion, a baddie – the wicked Princess Poison and, hopefully, a Happy Ever After.In this adventure, the girls have to help a girl called Emily, who is scared of the sea, after being stung by a jellyfish the previous year. Can Charlotte and Mia help her to have fun again and face her feat of the water? My nine year old daughter loved this story and is looking forward to reading on in the series. A fun, feel good story, with a good mix of the real world and the fantasy.

My soon to be seven-years' old daughter has really enjoyed this second book in the series ... she absolutely loved the first and could not wait to get started on this one. We've read it together, she's read it by herself and I've read it to her at bedtime.Other reviewers have covered the storyline so I won't repeat it here; there's a 'look inside' feature on the product's page and that's worth a look just to get an idea of the vocabulary used and the sensible font size ... it also gives one the opportunity to see the lovely illustrations that really make a difference to the book.My daughter loves all things 'princess' (including pantomime and Barbie ... and more), and in particular she really likes the illustrations (there are lots of them) before she'd even read a word.The book has 9 chapters with illustrations on almost every page that really help move the story on ... and my daughter thought they were great and intends to colour her favourite ones in! The font size is good and remains consistent throughout the chapters.We have only just finished the book after about two weeks, but my daughter's interest did not wane at any point; she really (REALLY) enjoyed the main characters' biography in the back of the book.