title: The Story of Princess Olivia
author: Charles Egbert
description: Gr 36Princess Olivia lives with King Horace and Queen Cora in a crumbling castle in the Green Mountain Kingdom now known as Vermont. Her mother is a worrywart, and her father is quite melancholy-especially when he thinks about the poor condition of the royal bank account. Princess Olivia goes out to her bower one day to play, where she befriends a hoop snake, a snake that has swallowed its own tail, turning itself into a living hula hoop. In the woods, Olivia runs into the dreaded and villainous Count Carlos Maximillian Von Dusseldorf, who cannot believe his good luck to have stumbled upon the princess all alone. He promptly throws her into a cage and carts her off to the middle of the woods with his magical minion, Georgette, in order to blackmail a ransom out of her parents, not realizing that they are, in fact, destitute. With the moaning and groaning king and his worrisome queen rambling through the woods searching for their missing daughter, helped by the dashing Prince Dropoffsky, the Count and Georgette try to stay one step ahead of them, while the intelligent princess spends her time with Mr. Snake, plotting her escape. This slight but humorous story is filled with rigorous and playful vocabulary that would be fun to explore in a classroom. The bumbling actions of the royals, along with the descriptions of Count Von Dusseldorf, allow for creative-writing extensions as well. Pen-and-ink illustrations complement the text. Readers who enjoy fractured fairy tales and their original counterparts might enjoy this whimsical chapter book. Consider for larger collections.Lisa Kropp, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY
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  # Ayala's Angel
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Anthony Trollope
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER 1. THE TWO SISTERS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  When Egbert Dormer died he left his two daughters utterly penniless
  
  
  upon the world, and it must be said of Egbert Dormer that nothing
  
  
  else could have been expected of him. The two girls were both
  
  
  pretty, but Lucy, who was twenty-one, was supposed to be simple
  
  
  and comparatively unattractive, whereas Ayala was credited --
  
  
  as her somewhat romantic name might show -- with poetic charm
  
  
  and a taste for romance. Ayala when her father died was nineteen.
  
  
  We must begin yet a little earlier and say that there had been
  
  
  \-- and had died many years before the death of Egbert Dormer
  
  
  \-- a clerk in the Admiralty, by name Reginald Dosett, who, and
  
  
  whose wife, had been conspicuous for personal beauty. Their charms
  
  
  were gone, but the records of them had been left in various grandchildren.
  
  
  There had been a son born to M