Shelly's Book Blog

I had already read (and loved) two of Sharon Creech's books: Walk Two Moons (a Newbery Medal winner) and Ruby Holler, so I was pleased to take my friend Nina's suggestion that I read Castle Corona. This story reminded me of Gail Carson Levine's books, Ella Enchanted and Fairest, but it is more tongue-in-cheeck. Maybe Jean Ferris's Once Upon a Marigold would be a better comparison. I just love books of the "long ago in a kingdom far away" type, especially when they make me laugh. The cast of characters in this story includes the usual king, queen, princes, and peasants, but Creech gives many of her characters their own little quirks that make them memorable and funny. For example, the king seems to like nothing better than to escape all his kingly duties by taking naps, and he consults his "hermit" in order to gain wisdom but never seems to understand the hermit's advice, which always seems to consist of fairly obvious observations such as, "A thief wants what he does not have."

Creech slyly comments on the absurdity of the self-centered royals, but by the end of the story most of the characters, peasants and royals alike, have learned important lessons about themselves and their true place and value in the world.