The Ordinary Princess

Blurb

The Ordinary Princess is a children's novel written and illustrated by M. M. Kaye. It concerns Princess Amethyst Alexandra Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne of Phantasmorania—Amy for short—who has been given the "gift" of ordinariness.
Like the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, the story begins with the birth of a princess and the arrival of fairies—invited against the king's better judgment, for the sake of tradition—to give her gifts. The fairy godmother Crustacea, however, tells her, "You shall be Ordinary!" Unlike her six older sisters, Amy grows up brunette, freckled, and plain, preferring playing in the woods to wearing fine clothes.
When she finds out that her parents want to hire a dragon so that a foreign prince can "rescue" her from it and thereby "win her hand in marriage", she climbs down the wisteria vine outside her window, runs away to live in the Forest of Faraway, and makes animal friends, Peter Aurelious the crow and Mr. Pemberthy the squirrel.