Princess Smartypants

Had a bit of water damage

My children just loved this story. Very humorous, easy for intermediate readers on their own or beginner readers with a little assistance. There's not much to this story, it seemed to end too quickly. However, it's perfect for bedtime or short-story reading in the classroom. If you're worried about feminist ideals: Be careful that your own opinions don't hinder the "flavor" of this story, young children don't read between the lines like we tend to do. It's really an entertaining story for young ones!

If you worry that exposing your children solely to Disney fairy tales will give them a warped view of the world, read them Princess Smartypants. It's funny, the pictures are fabulous, it's a great story and kids will love it. All the while they will learn a couple of positive messages. You should follow your heart regarding marriage and men who don't respect women should watch out. Princess Smartypants has an excellent life. She spends her days with her animals and is happy. Her only problem is she is plagued by suitors who only want to marry her for her wealth and beauty, but do not appreciate her for who she really is. She gives into pressure from her parents and agrees to hear out her suitors, but cleverly devises a plan to make them all go away. She challenges them to a fitness test which none of them can pass. She is quite happy until the last one comes along and passes all of her tests. He is cocky and overconfident and his tragic flaw is that he didn't think Princess Smartypants was so smart at all. So she kisses him and turns him into a toad. All the other princes run away and she lives happily ever after with her animals. My description may sound heavy, but the story is told with much wit and charm. My four year old loves the story, much more so than the Disney stories. I highly recommend this book for all parents of toddlers. I think it teaches young children that there are alternative routes to happiness, but it never takes itself too seriously.

This is a very funny book (well, it is the first few times you read it). Just love the illustrations which tell so much of the story, especially the chinless wonders who come a-courting.Princess Smartypants DOES get to live happily ever after in this story, but not in the usual way.My son loves it. I overheard him telling a friend the other day that "some people don't WANT to get married". That's OK, isn't it?

If the thought of giving the little girls in your life yet another iteration of the "princess in the tower waiting to be rescued" genre makes your blood run cold, Princess Smartypants will save you! Very funny, especially the princes' names - Prince Grovel, indeed! This book provides our culture with the boot in the pants that it needs. A must for every small woman who wants to "stay home with her pets and do exactly as she pleases"...

For those who think children ought only to be fed with moralising stories that are straightforward, teach them a frozen "good" and "evil" and that men should act like Tarzan and that women should stay in the kitchen: never, never give your children a book by Babette Cole. Babette Cole's Books are controvesial, funny and witty. She knows how to use words and she knows how to use a paintbrush. Her characters don't tell the readers what to do, they just decide to do what they want. Princess Smartypants doesn't want to get married. So what? Just because she's a children's book character, she should get married? What if SHE decided what she wants to do? If she wants to get rid of all the annoying princes who want to marry her, she will. She may be right, she may be wrong, but she sure is funny. I read my first Babette Cole at nine (which is rather late for a Babette Cole book) and it was one of the first books that made me question the characters and understand that what is a story is not the truth. Babette Cole's characters don't want to look real. They don't care if they're real or not. They just want to be the way they want to be and be left alone. We don't have to judge them. And that's what Babette Cole's books are all about.