Oh, what a good topic. This is something I used to think about a lot. (And write about a lot, but gassing on about one's stuff is irritating enough in one's own blog, but unforgivably in someone else's.)

Trying to think of examples where I've seen it done. The closest coming to mind right now is the romantic version, an early novel by McKillip, illustrated by her sister (the seventies style of the drawings is mindboggling) called The Night Gift. She deals extraordinarily well with being the one Not Picked, even though it's by a boy, and not by The Fates or Destiny to be Queen of the Megaverse, complete with violet eyes.