The main character, Zoe Mclaren, is a tortured soul who is lost among the perils and joys of her life. The ideas she chooses to believe in make her very different from the people of her time. In that way she is much like the author, who touches upon many matters of importance that have existed throughout our time. In her novel, Frances Sherwood guides us through the most awakening and self-gratifying pieces of literature I have ever read.

I liked this film alot. The scenery and costumes were beautiful, and the acting was brilliant. I especially enjoyed the presence of Ermengarde and Lottie, two wonderful characters from the book who were not in the previous Shirely Temple version. However, I've noticed that the filmmakers borrowed some scenes from Shirley's film, especially toward the end. The climax of the film is very similar to Shirley's: The Indian servant sneaks into their room at night, decorates it all up nicely, and then later Miss Minchin comes in and blames the girls for stealing the stuff. She locks them in their rooms and calls the police. The girls attempt escape by going out on the ledge and into the window of the house next door. Sara makes it but Becky gets caught. Sara hides in the house (in the ST version she manages to get to the hospital) and, while still on the run, happens to find her father, who doesn't remember her. Just as she's about to be caught by the police, her father remembers her and comes to her rescue -- and all is happily ever after.
The original story ends differently. In the book, the Indian servant comes back night after night with new additions and good food, and the girls' newly decorated attic room is never discovered by anyone else. The old man who lives next door is actually a very kindhearted gentleman, as opposed to the bitter, cold man in the film who hardly gives Sara a second glance. He secretly sends Sara some fine, new clothing and Miss Minchin, who believes Sara has some wealthy, distant relative, allows her to wear them and begins treating her more decently, even allowing her to resume her lessons in the classroom. One night, the Indian servant's monkey escapes into Sara's room. She goes over to the house next door to return it, and starts a conversation with the old man. Upon telling him her name, she finds that he is a friend of her father's who has been looking for her for two years. Although Sara's father really does die in the book, the ending is still very happy. While I enjoyed this film, I think the directors should have stuck closer to the original story than the previous film version. Otherwise, great movie.

Title: A Little Princess
By: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Reviewed By: ...
Period: 4

There is a young girl named Sara. She is a very smart, kind and clever girl. Sara likes to read books and imagine things. Her father had to go off in India for a job so he left Sara at a school. They were a very rich family. Sara always wore the fancy clothes and she got everything she desired. At the school, everyone always looked at her. She made some friends but very few. A few Years later, her father dies. She becomes a poor, dirty maid who cleans at the school. She still has contact with her friends but very few. She met a neighbor that just moved in. It turns out that he is looking for her because he was a close friend of her dad. The neighbor doesn't know that Sara is the girl at the school next door.
Later on they meet, and Sara's life becomes a lot better.
I liked this book because it kept making me want to read on. I didn't want to stop. It was such a interesting book. I've never read a book like this one. It's so fun how she is very happy at first and then sad later on. " Nobody but Sara herself ever knew what had happened in her room after she had ran upstairs and locked the door. In fact, she herself scarcely remembered anything but that she walked up and down, saying over and over again to herself in a voice which did not seem her own: 'My Papa is dead! My papa is dead!'" That was the sad part.
This book always made me think about how nice of a girl Sara was and what a kind heart she had. I was crying when she had become a poor, maid after her father died and left no money. She always cared for others and was an excellent student at school. "'Ah, Madam, ' he said, ' there is not much I can teach her. She has not learned french; she IS french. He accent is exquisite." That is what her french teacher told The head mistress.(She is very smart)
My favorite part of the book is when she meets friends. Although she had kind ways to talk to people, she always met people in a strange way. For instance, when she met one of her friends, Lottie,it was when Lottie was crying. Lottie was screaming out that she had no mother. Sara never really met her mother. Then, Sara offered to be her adopted mother.I thought that was strange but nice of her. It stopped Lottie from crying so hard and she became very close friends with her. That is what I liked about the book.

I first read this book when I was ten years old. I still remember being transported from my Boise, Idaho sunroom, circa summer vacation 1976, back to the foggy gaslit streets of Victorian London. I don't believe that I moved off that sunroom couch until I had devoured this entire book. I loved the whole idea of A Little Princess -- the beautiful clothes (watered silk and petticoats!), the food (gruel!), and Sara's suffering in the garrett. Sara's life was so different from mine. Reading this book was like travelling to a different continent.

In some ways, this is a formula book for girls -- although it might be fair to say that this book invented the formula: plucky, mistreated orphan (mysteriously stripped of her fortune), who never loses hope and remains truly good transformed through a mysterious benefactor into a girl rich beyond her wildest dreams (see also: the Boxcar Children; Little Orphan Annie, etc).

Sara is an extremely engaging character. She is almost too good to be true -- kind to the servants, smarter than the headmistress, and able to tell stories that ensnare her listeners. Sara's stories enable her, first to make friends, and then later, to cope with the rather significant blows that life (and the author) deal her.

And, in the best of tradition of this type of story, Sara is rescued, her wealth is restored, she remains a perfectly lovely little girl, and the horrible headmistress who mistreated her gets her comeuppance. All is right with the world once again.

I was lucky enough to be introduced to this book by attending one of Frances Sherwood's readings. So I can hear the whole story in her voice, which is an added pleasure for me.

This book is a great read, whether you generally go for historical fiction or not. It will keep you in your chair turning pages until long after your hot tea goes cold. The characters are engaging, wonderfully strange at times, and their lives are moving. Sherwood captures the intensity of life in the threatened Jewish community of Prague. The suspense created by their uncertain fate keeps the story rolling. Emperor Rudolph II is one of the most memorable quirky characters you're likely to encounter. He's both an historical personage and a freshly realized person. The colorful historical detail is balanced by a powerful story that has the authority and charm of a folk tale (for adults). The book has received endless praise in the major reviews. Richard Eder in the NY Times makes the point that the book is wise as well as fun. That's true. On the other hand, don't let the fact that the book is a brilliant piece of "literature" scare you away from the pure reading pleasure. There's plenty of fantasy and drama in this book, too.

Book of Splendor transports the reader to a different time and place. The historical and magical details are precisely drawn and you are swept into the court and ghetto of Prague in 1601. The love story between the Golem and the heroine is bewitching balanced by the threat of extinction of the Jewish community. For those who love historical fiction, magic, and romance, this is a must read.

To be sure, tourism in Prague must have increased after publication of this book. As a result of Ms. Sherwood's vivid descriptions, Prague becomes the main character in this story.

In the acknowledgements (how many novels have you read that have acknowledgments?), Ms. Sherwood calls this a historical fantasy -- a perfect description. As she explains, some of the characters and events are historical, some fictional, some historical who have been somewhat fictionalized. Which parts are historical and which fictionalized is not really important, the engrossing story stands on its own merits.

The Book of Splendor -- even the title evokes a sense of mystery -- has all the elements of a great movie: engrossing plot, detailed and sympathetic characters, colorful, even exotic location, and more than a little mystery. Not mystery as in Perry Mason, but mystery as in an exploration of the complexity of human relationships, the wonder of self-sacrifice and (not to be flippant) the meaning of life. All of this is overlaid with the uneasy co-existence of Christianity and Judaism in turn-of-the-17th Century Prague.

And, then, there is the Golem, a mythical creature brought into being where the land and water come together, by means of spell and incantation. That he isn't a man is clear, but, is that because he is less than a man -- or more?

Fluid prose, subtle symbolism and well-balanced, intertwining story-lines: Ms. Sherwood handles it all, and beautifully.

This book, while fairly well written, was quite a dull story, and was very depressing to read. Sherwood seems to have researched her subject well, but the book seemed to be unnecessarily vulgar in a number of places, and this made the book all the more unpleasant to read.

I couldn't even finish it. I kept reading it thinking, "What is the point of this story?" I found it very boring at times and disgusting at others. Definitely one of the worst books I've ever read.

The blockheadedness & utter insensitivity of the two reviews below, in an open forum such as this, demand a response.

Frances Sherwood's reimagining of the life of the brave Mary Wollstonecraft, the woman who wrote the groundsbreaking "Vindication of the Rights of Women," proves quite the equal of her subject. Sherwood brilliantly recreates her protagonist's haunted Enlightenment world, at once alive with new ideas & half-smothered in medieval fears & prejudice. Better still, however, her history goes far beyond the merely correct, investing its conflicts with the chilled yet heightened humanity they must've engendered at the time. The "Mary" of this book has the wallop of her namesake, providing a new testament to women's toil & tragedy while never losing her humor, her smarts, or her desires.