A sweet and engaging Goose Girl retellings

I have been following Meredith Burton’s career for years and I love watching her grow as an author. Something I really appreciate about her work is how she includes a variety of differently abled people in her casts of characters. In this creative Goose Girl retelling, our princess, Felicity, reads as being on the autism spectrum. I adore the idea of a book starring a princess with autism. That’s not something that you see every day and this story does well presenting us with her strengths as well as her struggles.

Meredith did a great job writing this realistically so that the word autism is never used, since people in the era in which this story is set wouldn’t understand or have a name for the condition yet, but you still pick up on certain behaviors that point to it, and there were still characters who understood and loved Felicity, not despite her differences, but because of them. I particularly liked that the prince had someone in his family who also may have been autistic and so he already knew how to show understanding and love to someone who was different from him.

I also enjoyed Meredith’s writing in general. She’s always had a lovely style, but it just keeps getting better as time goes on. I especially like her vivid sensory descriptions. She doesn’t forget things like taste and smell and it adds another level of immersion into the story.Something that just plain made me smile was the way she wrote the animals speaking to Felicity. I don’t know, it just amused me and felt so much like how I would imagine these animals would talk if they could in real life. Especially how Felicity’s horse often referred to her as “Oat-Bringer”. That was just so perfectly horsey and I loved it. XD It was also fun that the golden goose was part of this story. I enjoyed the way she talked, too, and that she encouraged Felicity as a friend.

I also have to applaud the handling of the villain here. While it’s not always the case, I’ve read some Goose Girl retellings where the villain (the girl who tries to take the princess’ place) can sometimes come across as lacking depth and their personality boils down to greedy and power-hungry. Here, the villainess had a little more depth to her. Her nasty behavior is never excused, but we begin to understand the events and the mentality that acted as stepping stones for her to become jealous of Felicity and make the choices that she made. The story makes it clear that she was wrong (and some other people were wrong, too) and could have made other choices, but we do understand how she ended up in this place.

The faith elements were lovely as well, with references to Bible stories (retold slightly to fit the fantasy world) and references to the Creator of all things. I especially loved that the animals enjoyed listening to Felicity tell stories, recognized the Truth, and were able to help remind Felicity of that as well.Overall, this story was a delight to listen to. It kept me company when I needed to do some dusting around the house and it kept my mind entertained and engaged the whole time. I highly recommend it as a lovely and unique Goose Girl retelling!

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