Hayley Wells - Adolescent Literature: Princess Diaries

The Princess Diaries 

By Meg Cabot

SUMMARY:
A popular read for teenage girls, The Princess Diaries, published by Meg Cabot in the year 2000, tells the story of Mia Thermopolis, a normal teenager who thinks she's a freak and then finds out the secret of her family which turns her life completely upside down! Written in the form of a dairy, Mia reveals her daily activities, assignments, problems and issues in her life which are both hilarious and unlucky. Meg Cabot uses descriptive words, quirky sentences/lines and good use of exclamation marks and capital letters to show emotion to gain the reader's attention. The author is able to get inside a teenager's head and think about all the ways that the event of finding out she's a princess would affect her life. Everything from friendships to hobbies. All the normal things she was able to do is no more without being followed by paparazzi and stopped in the street by others. 

USE IN THE CLASS:
The audience the book is aimed at, are girls between the ages of 12-18. Because of this, it would be hard to get boys involved in this literature. Here are some suggested ways to include boys within this reading:
- With the use of shared reading to the whole class, students can discuss what features would be different if the sex of the main character was changed to a male?
- Students can create their own piece of writing from a boys point of view in Mia's situation, allowing the students to be creative. 
- Students can also write the story from Mia's cats perspective, what type of personality might he have?
- Look at the language/slang that is used within the text - Does the author constantly use verbal/noun groups to help describe characters and setting scenes? 

LINKS TO ACARA:

The above suggestions all link in some way to the key idea, "Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, choosing and experimenting with text structures, language features, images and digital resources appropriate to purpose and audience," as stated by ACARA (2012), within the strand, Literacy and sub-strand Creating Texts within the year 6 level.