The Princess and the Pea
Based on Hans Christian Andersen's beloved tale, this hilarious version features lively, buoyant rabbits in colorful costumes. The bouncy rabbit prince gets into all kinds of antics as he searches for the perfect princess bride.\ \ \ \ \ \ A young girl feels a pea through twenty mattresses and twenty featherbeds and proves that she is a real princess.\
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Andersen's classic fairy tale of the princess who felt the lump under her matress. Full-color illustrations.Publishers WeeklyIntricate patterns and dreamy pastel hues mark Duntze's luxuriant ilustrations for this classic tale. Ages 3-6. (May)
\ Publishers Weekly\ - Publisher's Weekly\ Intricate patterns and dreamy pastel hues mark Duntze's luxuriant ilustrations for this classic tale. Ages 3-6. (May)\ \ \ \ \ School Library JournalK-Gr 3 This story of a princess chosen for her feelings rather than her beauty de serves retelling, and Bell's translation is smooth and fast-moving. All the charac ters in Tharlet's gentle gray and mauve pictures, even the ``old'' King and Queen, appear to be children in 18th-Century fan cy dress. Round-headed and with sharply- drawn cartoon faces, their short stature is exaggerated by the interesting, rafter-lev el perspective. The soft watercolors are particularly suitable for a story about re fined sensibility, as they create both the misty air and the comfortably elegant manor and furnishings of a small northern kingdom. Only the incongruity between the silly comic faces and the romantic set tings is disconcerting. Patricia Dooley, formerly at Drexel University, Philadel phia\ \ \ Children's Literature\ - Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz\ The classic fairy tale is retold simply and traditionally. A prince who wants to marry only a real princess travels all over, but finds something wrong with every princess he meets. Back at home one night during a terrible storm, there is a knock at the door. A wet, bedraggled young girl is there, claiming to be a princess and seeking shelter. To test her, the Queen puts a pea on the guest room bed and has twenty mattresses and twenty quilts placed on top. There the Princess spends the night. When she complains the next morning that she could not sleep because of something hard in her bed, everyone knows that she is a sensitive real princess. The prince takes her as his bride. Detailed double-page scenes set in some Renaissance make-believe time make this a worthy addition to the many other versions. Painted in naturalistic watercolors, the illustrations project humor as the many characters arrange the test bed. Dusikova adds a small young jester to every scene just for fun. At the wedding, he carries the pea on a puffy pillow. Reviewer: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz\ \ \ \ \ School Library JournalPreS-K—A retelling of the classic text revealing the test of a true princess. A lonely prince journeys far and wide searching for a bride, but comes home alone and disenchanted. Then one rainy night, a self-proclaimed princess knocks on the palace door. The queen decides to test the young woman's honesty by placing a pea under 20 mattresses with 20 quilts on her bed. The next morning, when the girl proclaims how horribly she slept, the couple is married, for only a true princess could be so sensitive as to feel the pea. Dusíková's pleasing illustrations of the countryside and royal court breathe new life into a well-told tale. Lovely pastels enhance the 18th-century-like setting and dress. The addition of two well-placed cats and touches of humor add to the delight. A gentle, gratifying addition to fairy-tale collections.—C. J. Connor, Campbell County Public Library, Cold Spring, KY\ \ \ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsThis unadorned translation of Andersen's whimsical tale comes from a German edition of 2007. The pictures are pellucid: Readers see the prince coming home laden with paintings of various princesses who do not fit the bill. They see why on the next page: One princess is sticking out her tongue, and another is picking her nose, and so on. The king and queen are playing chess on that dark and stormy night when there is a knock at the door, and it is the king himself who trundles down the castle stairs, candle and key in hand, to let in a very damp and bedraggled princess. It is the queen who places a single pea on the bedframe and orders the 20 mattresses and 20 quilts to be laid atop it. Our heroine wakes to complain that she barely slept and is "black and blue all over!" The prince knows then he has found a real princess, and a wedding ensues. It ends with the puckish (and traditional) lines: "The pea was put in a museum, where it may still be seen. And that is a true story." Dusíková's pictures are full of soft edges and soft colors, with pretty architectural details and an assortment of castle denizens, including a pair of cats and a toddler in jester's motley. A rendering to bring a smile or possibly a giggle. (Picture book/fairy tale. 5-8)\ \
