The Princess and the Pea

I adore this book! I picked it up while shopping in Anthropologie a few months ago and it's been in frequent rotation at bedtime in my home since then. I have a daughter who is four and infatuated with princesses. This book offers her the glimpse of royal life that she loves, while at the same time letting me get lost in the beautiful illustrations and quirky dialogue. You can't help but read dramatically from this book! Speaking as an artist/designer, this book has amazing visual appeal. I especially enjoyed reading how the pictures and models were made. I would love to see more from this talented duo!

I orignally got this book because at my daughter's school a children's drama group came and did this play. We are big fans of Charlie and Lola so when I saw that Laura Child had written a book I knew this was the book for us. Each night my daughter chooses the 3 books we read each night and for the past 3 nights she has picked this book! We love how this classic tale from Hans Christian Anderson has been updated. I like how the illustrations are not just illustrations but are actual paper dolls made by Lauren Child with her classic prints / designs she uses for her characters clothes and surroundings. The " set" for the book is actually a cereal box and the furniture and lighting are from actual doll houses. The page of the book explains how the book was done. We also like how the Princess has Raven Black hair and the story rolls off your tougue. It's just an absolutely well done story, enjoyable for both child and parent!

I am stumbling over what great thing to list first. The incredibly vivid format? The gorgeous and unique blend of intricate dollhouse set creation and illustrations? The deft reinterpretation of what it means to be a REAL princess (as opposed to a cloying, vapid Disney princess), to say nothing of finding a life partner? The great vocabulary and lilt of the words as you read it? The joy of reading this story with a daughter or several little girls? Lauren Child makes this tale something totally magical but wonderfully grounded. Can't recommend it highly enough.

On a recent trip to the local bookstore, my daughter picked up this book, pulled me to a chair and instructed me to, "Read this please, Mama!" The cover art caught my attention, but the title... another retelling of the Princess and the Pea left me less enthusiastic. I began to read... Each page brought another terrific and interesting illustration, and the text, well... it was fun, smart, funny. Before I knew it I was completely drawn into the story and having a ball. More than one adult shopper stopped to listen in, clearly enjoying themselves as well. Also a first grade teacher, I soon found myself thinking of how I could use this book in class with my students. High praise for a book to want to take it to work and introduce it to a class full of youngsters. I'll keep my review short, but suffice it to say, this book is a real winner! And the illustrations... oh, the illustrations! I'll admit that I also found myself thinking Caldecott Medal.

As a children's librarian I'm ever watchful and ever on the alert for the next Caldecott contender. I like picture books with a bit of oomph and pizzaz to them. I like picture books that try to do something a little different. I like picture books, in short, like Lauren Child's, "The Princess and the Pea". I picked this puppy up with the full expectation of getting something along the lines of yet another Charlie and Lola adventure. Instead I was stunned by the fabulous art I found. From its cover (cleverly designed to look like the cut-away with the chandelier is actually a giant pea) to its final pages where the book describes the artistic process, "Princess" has everything you're looking for in a great picture book, but with enough artsy-fartsy cache to lure even the stodgiest of adults. Once upon a time there was a king, a queen, and a prince. The prince was of the right age to marry and his parents wanted him to find a suitable mate. The prince agreed to this plan but he wanted to marry for love. This would have been fine except that though he met all the nearby princesses, none of them had "a certain ... something about her". So the prince searched high and low for someone to love but no one was quite right. At the same time that the prince was getting depressed about this, a beautiful girl who lived in a treetop house started following the moon to see whether or not it was just as beautiful above and beyond the mountain as it was in her home. Of course this meant that she became hopelessly lost, but fortunately she stumbled across the king and queen's castle. And if you happen to know your classic "Princess and the Pea" story then you know what happens next. The characters in this book are all from the pen of Lauren Child but each one has been cut out, dressed up in real fabrics, and placed in very real sets. They move and dance and walk and sleep all within very real areas and are then photographed for this book. The result is luminous. I ecstatically started talking up the charms of this book to a co-worker today when he pointed out, not unfairly, that Child's use of italics in the book is a bit... much. He had a point. There's nothing wrong with the writing itself. Child uses the same easy-going unassuming (yet charming) wordplay we've all grown so fond of in books like, "I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato" (winner of the book-more-adults-find-themselves-unable-to-pronounce award). Unfortunately that same set of words is fairly riddled with overenthusiastic italicizing. Every time I saw an adverb coming I felt like I had to duck or find myself over-emphasizing words that did not need to be over-emphasized. But some people won't even notice this and others won't find that it hurts the text a jot. I am in the latter category and certainly the book seems tailor-made to be loved. Actually, it was the story that caught me off guard. At this moment in time picture book publishers are in the thick of a bit of post