Princess Pru and the switcheroo

Maureen Fergus

Book - 2024

"Princess Pru has two loving dads, an ostrich named Orville, and an ogre-tastic best friend named Oggy. Oggy and Pru spend their days playing games, having adventures, and getting spoiled by shopkeepers. Then, every evening, Oggy goes home and does whatever he wants. Pru returns to the palace where she has to finish her vegetables, tidy her playroom, and go to bed on time. When her royal dads tell her she can't take Orville for a gallop until she finds all three royal tarantulas, Pru decides she's had enough. So Oggy and Pru hatch a plan for Pru to experience the easy existence of an independent ogre: they'll disguise themselves as each other and switch lives. And it works! Until they start to wonder if maybe it doesn�...39;t work quite the way they'd hoped. Why don't the shopkeepers spoil Pru when she's disguised as Oggy? Why don't the townspeople laugh at her jokes? And is that a monster in Oggy's attic? Suddenly missing almost everything about the princess life, Pru eats a bowl of cold ogre stew and tucks herself into bed. Meanwhile, at the palace, an obedient Oggy has the royal dads completely fooled. The kings are so happy that they reward the princess with a pony. But just as Oggy-in-disguise tries to ride it, a dragon swoops in and flies away with him. Much to the relief of the distraught kings, the princess's ogre-best friend (who is really Pru disguised as Oggy) steps in to rescue the princess, to great fanfare on their return. No one is the wiser--except the reader, who will enjoy being in on the secret--and Pru and Oggy both gratefully return to their old lives, which they see with fresh eyes. In this instructive and humorous story, the switcheroo prompts Pru to realize that, even though she chafed under her protective parents, she has a lot to be thankful for with the privileged life she leads--a life that Oggy doesn't share. Seeing the world through Oggy's eyes creates empathy in Pru, which encourages readers toward empathy as well."-- more