Growing up Helen was always told she was beautiful. When she learns her beauty will gain her different privileges and freedoms that her brothers and sister will never experience. Not only will she be queen of Sparta, but Helen has been blessed by Aphrodite with beauty like no other.
She learns that beauty will get her anything she wants, but a little persistence will get it for her on her own terms. Helen decides no one will control her and learns to fight just like her brothers. When her younger sister is sent to her wedding, Helen and her brothers go along. They are side-tracked when their uncle sends news of a wild boar rampaging his kingdom.
In their uncle's hall Helen meets another woman who has learned to fight like a man--though Atalanta hasn't hidden her skill and fights alongside the heroes. Helen befriends the young woman and learns more than just fighting skills from her.
After disaster at her uncle's court and learning that Atalanta not only doesn't think badly of her, but respects her Helen and her brothers begin their long journey home. They stop at Delphi and the Pythia at Apollo's temple from whence Helen must find her own way home. Helen refuses to allow the world to make her decisions, and finds herself on her own quest.
In a time and place where women are considered to be property of men, Helen of Sparta challenges the people around her, from her brothers to a complete stranger, to look at the pretty girl from Sparta as more than just her face. Through hard work and persistence Helen becomes friends with a legend and earns the respect of the heroes around her. Nobody's Princess is a story of going after your dreams despite the difficulties and readers in later elementary school and early middle school will enjoy it.
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