Princess Olivia Investigates the Knights of Nature

The third title in this unique series by global bestseller and science educator Lucy Hawking about a former princess desperate to find out about the world around her – and what she can do to help it. Illustrated throughout by Zoe Persico and with fascinating non-fiction sections from world-renowned scientists, this is perfect for readers 7 and over.
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Find out more about Princess Olivia and the Wrong Weather

Find out more about Princess Olivia and the Sea of Plastic

Meet Zoe Persico, the Illustrator and see how she paints

Find out more about Princess Olivia and the Wrong Weather

Find out more about Princess Olivia and the Sea of Plastic

Meet Zoe Persico, the Illustrator and see how she paints

Olivia much prefers life as a scientist to life as a princess. And now she has to solve her biggest science mystery yet!

‘We have done some investigations into the changes we see, feel and experience in the climate around us. You might not want to know about these changes, but you need to know about them because this is the world you’re going to leave to us young people when we’re adults!’

Olivia and her best friends, Ravi and Helga, aka The Climate Crew, start to realise that the problems in the environment around them are all connected to each other,
and all to do with the way the Earth is being looked after by everybody on it. They need to help.

When they realise that a group called the Knights of Nature, set up years and years ago, believe the same things they do and also want to help, they decide to work together.
Protecting Alez’s weather and countryside and animals and people – and, well, everything, really! – awaits them.

Meet the Characters

Here are some of the characters in the story.

Click on the down arrow to read more about each character.

Princess Olivia is the 9 year old heir to the Kingdom of Alez, a small country with a coast on one side and mountains on the other. Her family have ruled the country for over a thousand years and expect to carry on for another thousand. She lives with her Mum and Dad, Queen Paragona and King Tolemy the Thirty Second in a mountain top palace.

Olivia doesn’t really like being a princess. She finds it very boring and her parents only let her have lessons in topics she finds really dull, like playing the lute or learning table manners. Olivia has decided to give herself an education by reading all the books in the Royal Library – but they are not very helpful. She thinks she may have learnt how to joust from one of them but at the same time, suspects this isn’t going to be a useful skill when she finally achieves her dream of escaping the Palace.

One day, to her enormous surprise, her life changes immediately. Her dream of leaving the Palace comes true but not at all in the way she expected. Pushed into a completely new environment, Olivia at first struggles to adjust but quickly learns that she has greater resilience, perception and ability than she could ever have thought.

Olivia is bright, engaging, quirky, stubborn and loyal. She makes friends quickly in her new world and is adaptable and resourcesful. She is also brave and determined. Faced with multiple challenges, she rises to them and through her persistence and intelligence, sees something that the adults around her are failing to address. Olivia realises the weather has gone wrong and that she and her friends need to use the power of science to find out why…

Ravi is Olivia’s best and first friend. They met on her first day at school when Olivia was finding it hard to adjust to being a school student instead of a princess. Olivia had always wanted to go to school and have her own friends – but she hadn’t imagined that her Mum, the former Queen Paragona, would insist on coming to school with her! Olivia was so embarrassed, she wanted to cry but Ravi saved her and they’ve been best friends ever since. Ravi lives with his Mum who works very hard for long hours so Ravi is very independent and street smart. He loves dressing up and jewels and has also become firm friends with Olivia’s Mum who now has her own jewellery line, Royalty Rocks. Ravi has been helping her design beautiful tiaras and crowns which, it seems, the people of the new republic of Alez can’t buy fast enough! Ravi is creative, clever and brave – and would do anything to help Olivia.

Helga is Olivia’s super smart school friend and President of the Science Society of Investigators which the three friends formed in the last book. One of Helga’s Mums, Gretchen, is also a president – but she is President of the whole country of Alez! Gretchen took over from the last president, the devious Jeremy Pont, when the three science investigators discovered he had been secretly cutting down the forest to make way for factories which belched pollution into the atmosphere, driving temperature rises which led to outbreaks of the ‘wrong weather’. Now that Gretchen is President, Helga’s life has changed. She is followed everywhere by security guards and she isn’t allowed to do fun things like her friends Olivia and Ravi. Helga is quite cross about this but conflicted as she loves nothing more than rules and following them. Will she ever work out that some rules might be asking to be broken?

Around the world

Princess Olivia books are now available in multiple languages

Ukraine

Italy

Germany

Read more of Lucy’s books …