Hamster Princess : Harriet the Invincible Volume 1 by Ursula Vernon is a great new series – even better in some respects than Vernon’s older Danny Dragonbreath series. Harriet has the brash bluntness of Danny but she’s a bit brighter and more independent – her sidekick is her trusty quail steed Mumfrey who, though brave and companionable, doesn’t have even a fraction of the reasoning of Danny’s two brainiac friends. (To quote, Mumfrey “was quite intelligent for a quail (which admittedly is sort of like being intelligent for a grapefruit)”.) And while Danny deals with the usual trials of elementary school in a contemporary American town, Harriet lives in a fairy tale kingdom and has to deal with being “not very princessly”. Thankfully Harriet busts gender and class expectations with verve and gusto. “Harriet generally required comforting about as much as a steel bear trap does, which is to say, not very often.”