The kingdom is bankrupt (because Preminger stole all the gold from the royal mine), so the Queen promises Princess Anneliese in marriage to King Dominick, in order to save her people. On a visit to the village, the princess meets her look-alike Erika, who works as a seamstress in Madame Carp's dress shop to pay off her parents' debt. The queen's advisor, Preminger, kidnaps the princess so he can get the wedding called off, and then step in to marry the princess himself and become king (since he's got all that gold he stole, he has the money to save the kingdom). The princess' tutor, Julian, asks Erika to pose as the princess until he can find Anneliese, so the wedding won't be cancelled. Erika and Dominick fall in love. Anneliese escapes from Preminger's henchmen, but she is turned away from the castle, so she seeks out Erika at Madame Carp's. Carp mistakes her for Erika and locks her up to finish all the dresses. Anneliese sends her cat Serafina with a dress label back to the palace. Preminger intercepts and finds the princess, kidnapping her again and imprisoning her in the royal mine. Julian is also imprisoned there. Preminger then returns to the palace and exposes Erika as an impostor and gets her thrown in the dungeon. Then he tells the Queen the princess died in a mine collapse and convinces her to marry him for his money. With the help of Herve the horse and Wolfie the cat, Anneliese and Julian escape from the mine, but not before they discover that it's filled with crystal geodes. Dominick returns in disguise and frees Erika. The princess and Julian are just in time to stop the wedding between Preminger and the Queen. With the geodes, the princess starts a whole new industry and is able to marry Julian for love. After traveling the world singing, Erika returns to marry Dominick. The cats marry and have lots of kittens!

 

This book is part of a book series called Barbie .

There are 96 pages in this book. This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+). This book was published 2005 by Tokyopop Press Inc .