Archive for May, 2007

One Pugnacious and One Persistent Princess
Make Two Pleasing Picture Books

h1 Tuesday, May 1st, 2007

I didn’t set out to do a princess-y picture book round-up here, but as fate would have it, I came across two new ones at once, one published by a giant publishing company (Scholastic) and the other published by the lesser-known yet stout-hearted Charlesbridge Publishing. And, fear not: these are not your run-of-the-mill princesses. They have quite a bit of spunk and sauciness — one of them to a fault, to say the least. Let’s get right to it . . .

Princess Justina Albertina: A Cautionary Tale

by Ellen Dee Davidson and
illustrated by Michael Chesworth
Charlesbridge Publishing
February 2007
(library copy)

I love a well-crafted, contemporary, tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale, and just check out that cover. Princess Justina Albertina’s nanny is holding a sign with that very sub-title, “A Cautionary Tale.” Pretty funny, since the princess is back there raising hell at the drawbridge. And flip the book over, and you’ll see Princess Justina’s crest with the words “Sic Semper Tyrannis,” a Latin phrase meaning “Thus ever it be with tyrants” (the phrase is attributed to Brutus at the assassination of Julius Caesar). Hmmm . . . you get the idea immediately that you’re in for one presumptuous, pushy protagonist. Indeed, the Princess is loud-mouthed, haughty, and just flat-out spoiled to death (and Chesworth accentuates that with his rather porcine rendition of her). There’s much humor here as her nanny suffers her fits (“She caused a ruckus and a rumpus and a horrible hubbub,” we’re told more than once, giving her nanny repeated headaches). She goes so far as to cover the earth trying to find her the perfect pet; this, the princess whines, is her current demand. She heads to a lagoon for a polka-dotted puffer fish, buys her a two-headed dog, takes a raft to Brazil and finds a talking toucan librarian, finds a purple-crested duchess monkey in the jungles of Africa, and more. The ill-mannered Princess Justina manages to scare or blatantly piss off each potential pet (the fish is “no fun” and she wants a pet who notices her; she tries to ride the dog, practically killing him in the process; she declares that the clever toucan is too “stupid” to say her name; and, she frightens the bejeesus out of the African monkey with her meanest possible face). Read the rest of this entry �