Meghan Enchanted

So I've been going through this phase. Since I was about 10. Yeah, it's been a decently long phase. I don't want to call it a feminist phase, but it's something akin to that.

Which is probably part of why when I was growing up “Ella Enchanted” by Gail Carson Levine resonated so solidly with me. Ella is strong-willed, spunky, and intelligent. She was everything that I wanted to be when I was growing up! She was a role model for me, but even more than that, she was like a real friend. Here, have a taste for how awesome she is:

“It is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.”

Preach it, Ella.

“Ella Enchanted” is a children’s book. It isn’t hard to read, it isn’t complicated, there aren’t layers and layers of symbolism to pick and peel at. And even though I was initially drawn to the book because I loved who Ella was, there was something else about it that drew me back over and over. For me, it became a sort of oasis. It was a book I could pick up when I was feeling stressed or lonely and it would actually help me feel better! I found comfort in the familiar scenes and characters. It didn’t matter that I had read it a bazillion times, I kept coming back to this book because it was that comforting to me.

Oh, and no. The movie does not have the same effect.