title: A Treasury of Princesses: Princess Tales from Around the World
author:  Shirley Climo 
description: For those of you who can't get enough of beautiful princesses, magic spells, and brave deeds, this lavish, multicultural collection will knock your glass slippers off! Shirley Climo is well known for her retellings of folktales and Cinderella stories from different cultures, such as <a href="/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060204338/${0}"><I>The Korean Cinderella</I></a>. In this lovely treasury she spins tales of princesses from China, Russia, South Africa, Germany, Guatemala, and Greece, as well as one story from <a href="/exec/obidos/ASIN/0688142192/${0}"><I>The Arabian Nights.</I></a> Each story is enhanced with a lush painting by the noted illustrator Ruth Sanderson and an introduction summarizing other related fairy tales and the origins of the story. The princesses and their tales are all different, but they all have one thing in common: they all live happily ever after, of course! (Ages 6 to 10)
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  Chapter 1
  
  
  
  
  
  She'd been to the palace before. The first time, nearly seven years earlier,
  she'd thought it was a fairy tale sprung into three dimensions. She was older
  now, though she wasn't sure about wiser. Cordina was a country. The palace was
  a building, a beautiful one. Fairy tales were for the very young, the very
  naive or thevery fortunate.
  
  
  Despite the fact that she knew the palace that housed the royal family of
  Cordina was stone and mortar rather than wishes and dreams, she had to admire
  it. It glistened white, almost pristine, atop a jagged jut of land that
  overlooked both sea and town. Almost pristine, yes, butnot detached - and not
  altogether placid.
  
  
  Towers speared to the sky, piercing the blue with white. Turrets and
  buttresses attested to its age-old defensive function. The moat had been
  filled in, but one could imagine it In its place were high-tech security
  systems and surveillance. Windows, some clear, some tinted, gleamed. Like any
  palace, t