Dealing with Dragons” is an hilarious, almost farcical fantasy that takes place in the kingdoms neighboring the Enchanted Forest. It is a world with knights and dragons, princesses and wizards and all manner of magical creatures and traditions. It is the tale of Cimorene, a princess, the seventh and youngest daughter of the king of Linderwall.

          Cimorene is a princess unlike any other princess in this world. She is not content to fill her head with manners and embroidery and inane traditions. She tries to study magic, or fencing or Latin but as soon as her parents discover each infraction, they order it stopped. None of those studies are fitting for a princess. None of the studies befitting a princess capture Cimorene’s interest. She learns them, but she is bored and frustrated. When a betrothal to a neighboring prince is planned, she resists. She doesn’t want to marry the bubble-headed prince just because it is fitting. Her parents, even her fairy godmother, are adamant. She will marry Prince Therandil.

          As she mulls over the problem, a nearby talking frog offers advice. Run away. Cimorene follows that advice, going to the dilapidated gray house the frog directs her to. There she finds dragons.

          After a rather frightening encounter, smoothed over in part by her princess training, she is taken in by one of the dragons. Her parents can’t complain. Being captured by a dragon is fitting for any princess. It comes with its own frustrations, though. Her father, compelled by tradition, offers her hand in marriage to the knight who can rescue her from the dragon.

          In the midst of hilarious attempts to discourage ever-increasing numbers of knights, including Prince Therandil, from rescuing her, Cimorene stumbles into her own adventure. In the process, she discovers an interesting way to best a wizard, makes several interesting friends and uncovers a dire plot against the dragons.

          This was a fun, whimsical story. I found nothing objectionable to my faith. It was silly and humorous at places, with some oddly jumbled permutations of fairy tale lore, but it was all light-hearted fun, not sarcastic or acrimonious.

          There was a clear understanding of right and wrong and the good guys clearly won the day. There is some light-hearted poking fun at tradition, which some might find offensive, but I thought was handled with just the right touch. Even though Cimorene balked against following tradition and all the”fitting and proper” education she had to endure, there are several times her knowledge and training aided her. There were just as many times she used the knowledge she had gained from her brief time spent studying not-fitting-for-a-princess studies. For me that illustrated the point that, while tradition and proper behavior is important, blindly following said tradition is unwise.

          The only complaint I really have, and it’s not much of one, is related to the villains. Throughout this book and even the entire series, all wizards are portrayed as evil and deceitful. There is one short section in the last book of the series that intimates there were some wizards not in on the nefarious plots, but it is a minor, almost missed side statement. This seems a bit one-sided and unrealistic, but it fits in this story-world. This same story-world presents most princesses as bubble-headed, dragons as noble, witches and magicians as good (they are different than wizards) and cats as helpful.

          All in all, “Dealing with Dragon” and its companion books, “Searching for Dragons,” “Calling on Dragons” and “Talking to Dragons” are fun forays into the fantasy land of The Enchanted Forest and its neighboring kingdoms.