Every girl in the childhood dreams to be a princess. But they probably do not know that not all princesses are the same. Some of them are quite strange. Strange because they look like ordinary girls but do not behave like princesses should. Paloma, the only daughter of the king in a small, beautiful country is just as strange. Everyone was surprised when once Paloma disappeared from the palace. Here begins her long history full of adventures. Palomaexperienced danger, but the kind and sensitive princess didn’t not changed, on the contrary, she let other people she met on her way to change and become better. On her long journey she spread friendliness and finally found a genuine and unexpected love. 

Paloma The Strange Princess is not a fairy tale in the traditional sense. There are no magical objects and events. But this story is still a magical tale, because it became favorite book of many children in Georgia. The book has received the second prize in the literary competition of publishing house Diogene in the nomination - Best Children's Book of the Year. 2006 was published bilingual edition (English-Georgian) of the book illustrated by well-known Georgian painter Rusudan Petviashvili.

EXTRACT
Translated into English by David Rowson

Once upon a time, in a country just as beautiful as the one where you live, there was a king who had a wife and a little daughter. I am not sure whether it was really true, but the inhabitants of that country thought that their King was the most intelligent, their bread and wine the most delicious, their springs the coldest, their sun the warmest, their sky the bluest and their land the richest in greenery. That country was called The Greenest.

The Greenest was small, but it had an illustrious past. The King craved for a son, an heir to the throne who would reign and look after his country in succession to his father. They tried every possible method to achieve this: they ate a magic apple, prayed in holy places, invited the most famous fortunetellers, but all in vain — the Queen could not have a baby. She didn’t worry about it though, as she had lots of other things to think about or to occupy herself with: she browsed through the fashion magazines, gave directions to cloth merchants and seamstresses and ordered the cooks to make special meals. She had a massage twice a day, weighed herself on the scales three times a day and changed her dress four times a day. Her seamstress, her cook, her masseuse and several maids accompanied her everywhere as they didn’t know beforehand what the Queen would like and when. Even if they left her, she would call them back in five minutes, so they preferred staying with her to interminably racing back and forth.

The King, it is true, was longing for a son, but he was very fond of his wife too. He couldn’t bring himself to divorce her and marry again; so he was gradually coming to terms with his fate and tried not to think about his problem... (See PDF)