The King’s Decree

0,00 €

TopicChildren's Books

AuthorTorina Kingsley

PublisherDROPCAP

A sixteen-year-old princess with depression wonders if anyone else understands how it feels to feel nothing. When Princess Devina turned fifteen, she struggled to get out of bed each day. Things that used to bring her joy–playing, laughing, dancing, painting–suddenly didn’t. It was as if all her emotions had disappeared, leaving her with a terrible emptiness–and sadness–inside. Her father, the king, vows to help his daughter by issuing a decree for her sixteenth birthday celebration: anyone in the kingdom who is able to make Devina smile will win her hand in marriage. So begins the middle-grade story The King’s Decree, a modern-day spin on the Russian folktale, The Princess Who Never Laughed, masterfully told by author Torina Kingsley. In the kingdom’s peasant village, lives yet a different teenage girl, Yasmin, who loves her humble surroundings and the people in it. An unlikely encounter with the princess sparks a bond between the girls that runs deeper than friendship. When tragedy strikes and Devina’s mother passes away, the princess is plunged further into despair and depression. She finds herself running to the person who makes her feel whole, who doesn’t judge her, who accepts her: “And my heart, as heavy as it was–as heavy as it still is–felt buoyed by Yasmin’s friendship, by her love. Just knowing that she wants to be by my side makes me want to keep standing.”