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Disney Princess A Jewel Story
Ariel The Shimmering Star Necklace
Ariel's sisters have given her beautiful present - a shimmering star-shell necklace! Ariel can't wait to wear it to the royal concert. But when the concert's lead singer, a young girl named Laurel, suddenly disappears, it's up to Ariel and her friends to find her. The adventure will take Ariel across land and sea, where she'll discover a secret legend that may hold the key to bringing Laurel home.
91 pages, Paperback
Published March 13, 2012
116 people are currently reading
364 people want to read
About the author
Gail Herman
228 books74 followersGail Herman, formerly a children's book editor in New York City, has written picture books, easy-to-reads, and chapter books, including many titles in the Who Was/What Was series. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts with her family.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
November 7, 2013
"This book is about Ariel trying to find laurel, who was somewhere mysteriously in the water, even though she is a human. I liked how the venture begins to find her."- Ria
September 20, 2014
In this early chapter book, Ariel is now married and living in the castle with Prince Eric. She still keeps in touch with her sisters, as well as animal friends Scuttle, Sebastian, and Flounder. This story has her tutoring a young girl in singing, only to have the girl disappear on the day of the concert. A fun visit with familiar characters, this is sure to be appreciated by any fans of the original movie or of princess tales in general.
August 14, 2013
I really liked this series concept. Each book in the series features a different Disney princess and is a great chapter book for K-4th grade. I am enjoying reading it to Kaity (4). She isn't a huge fan of the "one chapter at a time" concept, but she loves the princess and the color pictures.
June 13, 2014
This is a great addition to the movie Little Mermaid. If you have a little girl in your life that likes the movie then she will love this book.
October 30, 2014
It is so fun story
February 21, 2015
the writing was not all that great, but the plot wasn't too bad. the 5 year old I read it to loved it.
July 1, 2015
there was a legende that came true then somebodys child dissapeared then she told ariel that she had a new friend then the star turned the child into a mermaid then she turned back to human
August 18, 2023
Surprisingly we found this whole series at the thrift bookstore and my niece chose to get it. As a result I was tasked with getting the chance to read all the books to see how well they would stand up - do they stand closer to Classic Disney or are they capitalist woke Disney? Or maybe just capitalist Disney trying to get a bit of a mystery theme going on....
First of all some statistics for the whole series. There are included only eight books in this series with a mix of Disney princesses with some older ones and some rather newer ones combined together - Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Tiana, Merida and Rapunzel. Out of the eight shown on the box only Cinderella, Merida and Rapunzel are wearing the same dresses on the covers of their books while the other princesses are in different gowns. Meanwhile Tiana and Aurora are both in dresses that I have never seen in any of their canons whether their animated films or the Princess brand. Furthermore there is a listing on the box of the books, which is the way that I chose to read these books, but they can be truthfully read in any order as the reader may wish although I would honestly say Rapunzel's story should be last since that was the one that least interested me.
Each of the books has been illustrated with brightly colored full-page illustrations that are based off their animated films while those like Merida and Rapunzel had to be made into cartoons with Merida pretty much making the cut while Rapunzel didn't fare so well in my opinion.
And then a last statistic for the series, which rather confused me, is that the majority of these stories take place after the films in which these characters appear. Unfortunately the only exceptions to this rule seems to be Belle as her story is meant to take place some time shortly after she has moved into the castle as Beast's prisoner and Rapunzel as her story is meant to take place after she escaped the tower and went through the village but just before the lanterns were released thus making their stories seem more like fan-fic episodes.
This now leads me to Ariel's story, which takes place between basically her film and the film of her daughter thus she is now married to Eric. Out of all the books this one was the one that just really didn't suspend my belief as it should have. First all Ariel's sisters were all in this book more than they were in the films while arguing more than ever while furthermore relying on Ariel to tell them the Legend of the Sea Shell when she is the youngest instead of her more logical eldest sister Attina. It also just seemed to be rather random that both Sebastian and Flounder both were within calling distance when they were needed the most and King Triton acts confused on how to handle the situation that arises when Ariel basically put him through something similar when she was a mermaid of the sea.
As can be seen above almost all the mainstay characters of the animated film make an appearance debut back in this particular story with almost pretty much the same personalities as in the film. Unfortunately Scuttle and Flounder were more sacrificed to be clowns, which is sad that Flounder would have stupidity dumped onto him when he is already considered a coward in the first film.
Finally the last thing that really bothered me about this book was the fact that the author didn't even bother to look up royal etiquette thus having one character address King Triton as "Your Highness" instead of "Your Majesty". Such disrespect...
Otherwise even overlooking everything I found fault with it was a cute story while capturing Ariel in a sweet moment in her life while fans of her character as a whole would probably enjoy this quick read.
First of all some statistics for the whole series. There are included only eight books in this series with a mix of Disney princesses with some older ones and some rather newer ones combined together - Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Tiana, Merida and Rapunzel. Out of the eight shown on the box only Cinderella, Merida and Rapunzel are wearing the same dresses on the covers of their books while the other princesses are in different gowns. Meanwhile Tiana and Aurora are both in dresses that I have never seen in any of their canons whether their animated films or the Princess brand. Furthermore there is a listing on the box of the books, which is the way that I chose to read these books, but they can be truthfully read in any order as the reader may wish although I would honestly say Rapunzel's story should be last since that was the one that least interested me.
Each of the books has been illustrated with brightly colored full-page illustrations that are based off their animated films while those like Merida and Rapunzel had to be made into cartoons with Merida pretty much making the cut while Rapunzel didn't fare so well in my opinion.
And then a last statistic for the series, which rather confused me, is that the majority of these stories take place after the films in which these characters appear. Unfortunately the only exceptions to this rule seems to be Belle as her story is meant to take place some time shortly after she has moved into the castle as Beast's prisoner and Rapunzel as her story is meant to take place after she escaped the tower and went through the village but just before the lanterns were released thus making their stories seem more like fan-fic episodes.
This now leads me to Ariel's story, which takes place between basically her film and the film of her daughter thus she is now married to Eric. Out of all the books this one was the one that just really didn't suspend my belief as it should have. First all Ariel's sisters were all in this book more than they were in the films while arguing more than ever while furthermore relying on Ariel to tell them the Legend of the Sea Shell when she is the youngest instead of her more logical eldest sister Attina. It also just seemed to be rather random that both Sebastian and Flounder both were within calling distance when they were needed the most and King Triton acts confused on how to handle the situation that arises when Ariel basically put him through something similar when she was a mermaid of the sea.
As can be seen above almost all the mainstay characters of the animated film make an appearance debut back in this particular story with almost pretty much the same personalities as in the film. Unfortunately Scuttle and Flounder were more sacrificed to be clowns, which is sad that Flounder would have stupidity dumped onto him when he is already considered a coward in the first film.
Finally the last thing that really bothered me about this book was the fact that the author didn't even bother to look up royal etiquette thus having one character address King Triton as "Your Highness" instead of "Your Majesty". Such disrespect...
Otherwise even overlooking everything I found fault with it was a cute story while capturing Ariel in a sweet moment in her life while fans of her character as a whole would probably enjoy this quick read.
Read
January 18, 2025Princess Aril lives a happy life with her husband prince Eric in the castle and the princess loves visiting the village, the people. She also loves visiting her sisters, friends and helping people too.
Read
May 15, 20176-year-old daughter: 5 stars
5-year-old daughter: 4 stars
5-year-old daughter: 4 stars
January 24, 2018
I didn't like that Laurel was almost gone forever. I liked that she got back out of the water and still got to visit Calista.
May 2, 2019
5 stars for “seaweed puffs” and “sugared seaweed.” My 3 year old loves this story and we read it often now.
November 11, 2021
Cute story featuring Ariel and the rest of our favorite Little Mermaid characters. Fun read.
November 21, 2021
While Ariel and the other characters sounded like themselves, I found this book kinda boring. 🤷🏼♀️ Certainly not the best Disney Princess book I’ve read.
Content: none
Content: none
October 3, 2022
Wait - the whole kingdom knows she used to be a mermaid?
April 8, 2024
102 pages
July 24, 2023
A very nice chapter book, 10 chapters. My only complaint is that being from the Mediterranean myself, I didn't see any white, dark haired, and dark eyed brunettes. What's up with that Disney? We make up the majority in the Mediterranean.
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August 28, 2016
What a treat to get to see a bit of Ariel's life as a human! She has to solve a bit of a mystery that leads her back to her roots, or as it were, fins. Classic character make appearances, and new ones are introduced. It's a very fun, easy read. I certainly recommend this to your little ones who love Ariel, Disney, mermaids, and princess stories!
March 29, 2012
This is a nice installment in the Disney Princess Early Chapter Books series. There's a cute mystery around a missing girl in Ariel's kingdom, and it allowed for a nice dialogue with my daughter about making sure not to keep secrets from me about where she is and with whom she is playing.
November 15, 2013
laurel was once a human and turns into a mermaid. she wants to be with her friend calista. laura becomes human again because she wanted to do a concert.
January 6, 2013
This is a typical 2nd grade series reader. The story is mildly interesting, but will be comforting to many young readers since they already know the characters and the background story.
May 25, 2016
Didn't love it as much as other books I've been reading with my little girl, but better than a lot as well. Quick and fun, a mystery my daughter found fun as well.
April 29, 2017
My kids (5 yo and 3 yo) loved it, and I guess that's the whole point, so I'm averaging my 3 stars and their 5.
The plot is solid and I love that Ariel takes charge of the problem and sees everything through to the end, but my main problem with Disney's before/after stories is that there isn't a lot of conflict or depth. There are mistakes made and misunderstandings, but there aren't any consequences, no one has to make any tough choices, or give up anything (afterall, Ariel can change between mermaid & human whenever).
Overall, it's a great story for little ones and it's not going to cause them any stress, I would just like to see chapter books with a little bit more complexity that could inspire age appropriate discussions or deeper thinking.
The plot is solid and I love that Ariel takes charge of the problem and sees everything through to the end, but my main problem with Disney's before/after stories is that there isn't a lot of conflict or depth. There are mistakes made and misunderstandings, but there aren't any consequences, no one has to make any tough choices, or give up anything (afterall, Ariel can change between mermaid & human whenever).
Overall, it's a great story for little ones and it's not going to cause them any stress, I would just like to see chapter books with a little bit more complexity that could inspire age appropriate discussions or deeper thinking.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews