Until she turned 5 years old, my granddaughter was a Disney princess girl. Now that she is headed to 6, we seem to have changed gears from Disney princess to Barbie girl. We got her the Barbie and the Three Musketeers DVD and she loved it so much she has watched it a dozen times, each time noticing new details. Since she loves the story and likes books (a like we want to encourage), I also got her this book version of the tale as well. She likes the book also, and I have enjoyed reading it with her, even though she has also seen the movie several times. I am not sure what it is about this story that fascinates her so much. For those not familiar, it is a story about some girls who want to be Musketeers protecting the kingdom and prince, but are told they cannot be because they are just girls, not boys. Their assignments are to clean the castle. The girls discover a plot to harm the prince, end up saving the prince while the boy musketeers are largely clueless, and then become girl musketeers as their reward for saving the prince. The message is that girls can do the same things as boys, perhaps even better, including being musketeers and saving princes.
I give 4 stars. The reason for not 5 is that this book is extremely abbreviated compared to the movie. I would like to have seen another 5 to 15 pages to prolong her reading experience. But my habit with the grandkids has been to find things they love and then use those things they love to "sneak" some education into them, and this book has been great for allowing me to sneak some reading skills into the girl while still in Kindergarten. I give 4 stars.