Enchanted Forest Chronicles

In all of my years reading youth novels I have never come across over a book I love as dearly as the first Enchanted Forest book, Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede.

Dealing with Dragons follows the story of a Princess Cimorene. Cimorene isn't like her simpering blond sisters. No, she is tall and dark haired and adventurous. So adventurous in fact that when her parents arrange to marry her to a man she despises, Cimorene decides to take fate into her own hands and runs away.

With the help of a talking frog and a great many handkerchiefs, Cimorene finds herself in the Mountains of Morning, working as a Dragons Princess.

Throughout the rest of the book Cimorene comes across a great many interesting characters and a few twisted plot lines. The story unfolds into a beautiful and positively hilarious bout of unfortunate events, melting wizards, a friendly witch and a borrowed crepe pan or two.
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Searching for Dragons, the sequel to Dealing with Dragons, is the second book in this fantastic series. The main character is Mendanbar, King of the Enchanted Forest. Mendanbar is not a King who holds to formality, in fact, he finds most formal events quite stuffy and dull, so much so that he prompty cancelled all of them after his coronation.

Mendanbar doesn't regret his decision until one day when he finds a part of his forest burned to the ground. Suspecting the Dragons, Mendanbar talks to Morwen the witch, who sends him on a visit to Kazul. Only, Kazul is nowhere to be found, and Mendanbar finds a worried Cimorene instead. As the name implies, Cimorene and Mendanbar then head out to find Kazul, and figure out why patches of the Enchanted Forest are becoming barren wastelands.
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By far the most kooky of all her Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Calling on Dragons follows Morwen the witch, her nine cats, and her trip to find the Mendanbars stolen sword. This book hosts the most interesting collection of adventurers by far: talking cats, an 11 foot tall floating blue donkey with wings, an inquisitive magician, Morwen of course, Kazul and Cimorene.

This book ends in a stand off for the forces of good and greedy.
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Talking to Dragons is the final book in our Chronicle, centering on Daystar. Daystar lives on the edge of the Enchanted Forest with his mother until one day a wizard walks up the house and starts screaming about a sword. His mother then turns and melts the wizard, walks into the forest and brings back a sword. Daystar is confused and surprised - his mother has never done magic before this - and is instructed to go into the woods. Without another word, his mother walks back into the house and Daystar must find his own destiny.

Daystar was raised to be polite. When you live on the edge of an Enchanted Forest, you don't know if the person or thing you are talking to was once a prince or a king or an evil sorcerer who will turn you into catnip. This comes in handy when he meets some angry bushes, a young fire witch, a crazy magician, and a runaway dragon.

The end of this series comes with an epic battle of dragons, wizards, elves and other odd and wonderous beasts. It was a wonderful story along the way, and it is a wonderfully happy ending.