Never a conventional princess, Harriet becomes an adventurer after learning she is cursed to fall into a deep sleep on her 12th birthday, but after two years of slaying ogres, cliff-diving and more, things go awry at home and she must seek a prince to set things right. Simultaneous eBook. 75,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

Never a conventional princess, Harriet becomes an adventurer after learning she is cursed to fall into a deep sleep on her twelfth birthday, but after two years of slaying ogres, cliff-diving, and more with her riding quail, Mumfrey, things go awry at home and she must seek a prince to set things right. - (Baker & Taylor)

Harriet becomes an adventurer after learning she is cursed to fall into a deep sleep on her twelfth birthday, but after two years of exploits with her riding quail, things go awry at home and she must seek a prince to set things right. - (Baker & Taylor)

Sleeping Beauty gets a feisty, furry twist in this hilarious new comic series from the creator of Dragonbreath

Harriet Hamsterbone is not your typical princess. She may be quite stunning in the rodent realm (you'll have to trust her on this one), but she is not so great at trailing around the palace looking ethereal or sighing a lot. She finds the royal life rather . . . dull. One day, though, Harriet's parents tell her of the curse that a rat placed on her at birth, dooming her to prick her finger on a hamster wheel when she's twelve and fall into a deep sleep. For Harriet, this is most wonderful news: It means she's invincible until she's twelve! After all, no good curse goes to waste. And so begins a grand life of adventure with her trusty riding quail, Mumfrey...until her twelfth birthday arrives and the curse manifests in a most unexpected way.

Perfect for fans of Babymouse and Chris Colfer's Land of Stories, this laugh-out-loud new comic hybrid series will turn everything you thought you knew about princesses on its head. - (Penguin Putnam)

Sleeping Beauty gets a feisty, furry twist in this hilarious new comic series from the creator of Dragonbreath

Harriet Hamsterbone is not your typical princess. She may be quite stunning in the rodent realm (you'll have to trust her on this one), but she is not so great at trailing around the palace looking ethereal or sighing a lot. She finds the royal life rather . . . dull. One day, though, Harriet's parents tell her of the curse that a rat placed on her at birth, dooming her to prick her finger on a hamster wheel when she's twelve and fall into a deep sleep. For Harriet, this ismost wonderful news: It means she's invincible until she's twelve! After all, no good curse goes to waste. And so begins a grand life of adventure with her trusty riding quail, Mumfrey...until her twelfth birthday arrives and the curse manifests in a most unexpected way.

Perfect for fans of Babymouse and Chris Colfer's Land of Stories, this laugh-out-loud new comic hybrid series will turn everything you thought you knew about princesses on its head.
- (Random House, Inc.)

Ursula Vernon is a full-time author and illustrator whose work has won a Hugo award and been nominated for an Eisner. She loves birding, gardening, and spunky heroines, and thinks she would make a terrible princess. Ursula lives with her husband in Pittsboro, North Carolina. - (Penguin Putnam)

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Princesses don't cliff-dive. They don't joust, they don't slay monsters, and they don't rescue anyone. But Princess Harriet Hamsterbone (yes, she's a hamster) is a princess, and, "If I do it," she says, "it's got to be something princesses do! Who makes these rules?!" Not content to wait around to prick herself on a hamster wheel on her twelfth birthday—she was cursed at birth, Sleeping Beauty style—Harriet makes the curse work for her. Curses, she reasons, are specific, and this one will keep her alive until she's 12, making her all but invincible for the time being. And so off she goes, riding her faithful quail and ignoring her parents' dry commentary, saving princesses from dragons (and dragons from princesses), and maybe finding the skills to save herself in the process. And, oh yeah, she'll do anything to avoid having to kiss some stuck-up prince. The spunky, slightly bonkers Harriet is a delightful heroine who turns this fairy tale on its head, and the book is peppered with clever two-color cartoon illustrations that will attract even the more reluctant readers. It's a joy to read, and we can only hope that Harriet—long may she reign—will return in later installments. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

Horn Book Guide Reviews

Rhyming text counts down through a mildly "spooky night" as, one by one, nine pumpkins disappear; the tenth--now a glowing jack-o'-lantern--wishes us a "Happy Halloween!" Clear silhouettes in the foreground contrast pleasingly with the vivid pumpkins and bright backgrounds. Careful observers will discover the missing pumpkins' fates (baked into a ghost's pie, added to a witch's brew, etc.) and spot a curious black cat on each page.

Horn Book Guide Reviews

After learning she's cursed (` la Sleeping Beauty) to prick her finger and fall into a deep sleep, "Crazy Princess Harriet," a feisty hamster, chooses to spend her remaining days "beating monsters senseless" rather than taking deportment lessons. Deftly skewering genre types, Vernon's very funny fractured fairy tale features witty dialogue, interspersed midnight-blue-tinted cartoon panels--and adventures galore.

Kirkus Reviews

This new series from Dragonbreath's Vernon puts a wild spin on "Sleeping Beauty." A droll opening introduces Harriet Hamsterbone ("who, as her name indicated, was a hamster"), an adventurous princess chafing against deportment, the requirements of her role, and other limitations imposed by her parents. When they reveal the source of their overprotectiveness (the "Sleeping Beauty" curse, with a hamster wheel on her 12th birthday substituting for the spinning wheel), Harriet takes a seemingly counterintuitive stance: since the curse requires her to be alive on her fateful birthday, until then she must be invincible. She gallivants around as an unstoppable hero before returning home for her birthday—to discover that her mother has prepared for the curse by picking a wretched, male-chauvinist prince to kiss and wake her once the curse sets in. Before it can, the evil fairy shows up to gloat, and a hilarious sequence leads to the backfiring of the curse, leaving Harriet the castle's only hamster still awake. Now she must find a prince willing to kiss every last sleeping creature in the castle. Vernon deploys the same winning elements found in her Dragonbreath books, a mix of boldly drawn, two-tone cartoons, occasional speech bubbles, and a boisterously humorous text. Harriet is her own hamster, but she takes her place proudly alongside both Danny Dragonbreath and Babymouse. Creatively fresh and feminist, with laughs on every single page. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus 2015 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

This uproariously fun first entry in the Hamster Princess series begins when an uninvited evil fairy spoils Princess Harriet's christening and curses the baby to a deathlike sleep at age 12. Sound familiar? Well, it is, but this future sleeping beauty is a rodent, and the curse involves not a spinning wheel but a hamster wheel. When Harriet Hamsterbone, no fan of standard princess stuff like deportment lessons and kissing princes, learns about the curse at age 10, she's ecstatic—because she needs to be alive for the curse to work, she realizes that she's essentially invincible. (Harriet celebrates by jumping off a tower, then "spent the next two years cliff-diving, dragon-slaying, and jousting on the professional circuit.") When the curse magic gets twisted, Harriet demonstrates bravery, inventiveness, and a sword-sharp wit as she tries to save the kingdom. Shifting between prose passages and indigo-tinted cartoon sequences, Vernon (the Dragonbreath books) upends fairy-tale conventions and gender stereotypes left and right in a book with all the makings of a hit. Readers will be laughing themselves silly. Ages 8–12. Agent: Helen Breitwieser, Cornerstone Literary. (Aug.)

School Library Journal Reviews

Gr 3–5—From the creator of the "Dragonbreath" series (Dial) comes a new fairy tale heroine in the form of a hamster. Princess Harriet Hamsterbone is not like ordinary princesses who are known for trailing around the palace looking ethereal and sighing a lot. She is, however, brave and intelligent and excels in other hamster princess skills, like checkers and fractions. Harriet is also invincible, due in part to a curse put upon her at birth by the evil wicked fairy god mouse, Ratshade. The curse dooms Princess Harriet to fall into a Sleeping Beauty-like slumber at the age of 12 but leaves her unable to die until then. Rather than worry about the inevitable, Princess Harriet lives life without fear—cliff-diving and Ogre-cat fighting, all with her trusty quail friend Mumfrey at her side. When the curse backfires, leaving all in the Kingdom in a deep slumber except Harriet and Mumfrey, it is up to the fierce little hamster to find a willing prince able to help her break the curse and save the kingdom. The artwork is large and in graphic novel-style, with sparse colors, similar to the "Dragonbreath" illustrations. Move over, Babymouse, there's a new rodent in town! VERDICT Vernon has created a spunky heroine readers will cheer for and who will leave them eagerly searching for the happily ever after in the next installment.—Michele Shaw, Quail Run Elementary School, San Ramon, CA