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| Even the male illustrator is listed before the female author. That's just not right! |
Usborne is a well-known children’s book publisher. They
create beautifully illustrated books for children of all ages. People who
purchase Usborne books expect a quality story for their children.
Unfortunately, all is not well in the Usborne Kingdom.
A few days ago, my three-year–old granddaughter chose a
nap-time story for me to read to her. It was a beautiful pink color with a cute
little girl princess on the cover.
The Unsborne Book of
Princess Stories. Looks good, right? Wrong. And let me tell you why. There
are four short stories in this book. Two of them are fine, but the other two
are ridiculously anti-girl power.
Here’s the gist and my take on each story.
The first story is entitled The Princess and the Pig.
In this story Prince Max and his sister, Princess Alice, are playing outside.
Alice finds a little pig stuck in a big mud puddle. She pulls the little pig
out of the mud, while her brother, Prince Max, reminds her that she’s not
supposed to get her dress dirty. “Don’t
let Queen Mama see you. She told you not to get your dress dirty.”
(Seriously????? What year is this? 1960?)
Alice ignores her brother and washes the piggy...and she gets
in trouble for getting her dress dirty. Alice is undeterred. She kisses the pig and it turns into a little
boy prince. (Sure, why the hell not? Makes perfect story sense…) Queen Mama
says, “We can’t have a strange prince in the castle, change him back.” So Alice
kisses him again and he turns back into a pig. (What kind of a queen mom would refuse
a little boy who’d been turned into a pig? If I was a kid hearing this
story, I’d be so stressed about having the boy turned back into a pig!)
The next story, thankfully, is better. In The Dragon,
Alice and Max find a hungry little dragon. They bring him home and feed him. And because
he’s a fire-breathing dragon, he becomes the royal fireplace starter. (He gets
to live in the castle but a pig-turned-little prince-turned-pig-again is sent
away? I’m still bitter over that one.)
The third story is a real piece of work. It’s called The
Tournament. The castle is excitedly preparing for a jousting
tournament. Max gets to practice
jousting but Alice can’t, because no
girls are allowed. Alice, bless her little rebel heart, won’t have it. She
dresses in her brother’s clothes and calls herself “Alex.” While jousting, “Alex”
knocks a boy off his horse. Alice is found out when she trips and falls off her
horse. (She didn’t even get the respect of being jousted off. Just another
clumsy girl, I guess…) Queen Mama says to her, “You’re a very naughty girl.” (I
thought this story was so bad, I talked with my granddaughter about how girls
can do all kinds of stuff that boys can do, too. Then I re-read it two times, changing it to: “The boys and
girls all practiced jousting together. Sometimes they fell off and got hurt,
but they got back on their horses and kept practicing.”)
I didn’t even want to read the final story, The Royal
Broomstick, but I did because my granddaughter had to put off nap-time as
long as possible. Luckily, this book ends on a stronger note. The children go to
visit their grandmother in her tower. Grandma is not there so the kids decide
to wait for her and end up playing with her magic broom.They get on it and fly out the window. They have
great fun and even find grandma’s pet cat stuck in a tree. They bring the cat
home and grandma is happy her kitty has been found.
Fifty percent of the stories in this book are stupid. The
marketing department at Usborne did a great job on the cover and back blurb.
They made it sound so inviting, without telling a lie about the contents of the
book. No mention of the Princess Alice being naughty or dirty or trying to do ‘boy
things.’
This post is getting long, but hang with me for a minute
more. I can’t close without telling you about an awesome, strong princess book. The
Paper Bag Princess, by Robert Munsch is the kind of princess story children
should be reading.
In this story, a nasty fire-breathing dragon burns up the
castle and everything in it. The dragon carries off the prince and leaves the princess
behind. Since everything is gone, destroyed by the dragon, including her
clothes, she finds a paper bag to wear as a dress and heads out to save the
prince. She goes through hell and high water to get to the dragon’s lair and
rescues the prince. BUT, he’s an asshole, so she tells him off and leaves. It’s
a great story of courage, perseverance and self-respect.
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| "Elizabeth, you are a mess! You smell like ashes, your hair is all tangled and you are wearing a dirty old paper bag. Come back when you are dressed like a real princess." |
Until next time,
Be Good to Yourself.
~Nadine
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