Move over, Princess Smartypants: this Dutch import arrives to take top honors in the fairytale-fracturing department. When the pushy queen of a small, unnamed country decides it’s high time for her son, the prince, to settle down and marry a princess so she can retire, he exhibits some reluctance—“I’ve never cared much for princesses”—but she eventually wears him down. There follows a seemingly endless parade of eligible princesses, but the prince is unmoved until Princess Madeleine shows up with her brother, Prince Lee, and, “It was love at first sight. / ‘What a wonderful prince!’ ” The prince and Prince Lee are duly wed, “And everyone lives happily ever after.” The exuberant mixed-media illustrations have a distinctly European flair, employing vivid colors in bold combinations, and the line-and-color human figures have a childlike, almost primitive look. The prince himself looks rather like Mr. Gumpy with a crown; Prince Lee is a dashing chap with a goatee and an earring. Taken all together, the illustrations work wonderfully with the text to make its statement with no apologies whatsoever. After the wedding (at which the queen sheds a sentimental “tear or two”), the newlyweds gaze at each other over their monumental purple-and-pink cake, which, of course, is topped with two tiny princes. On the final, wordless page, the happy couple smooch, the actual meeting of lips chastely fig-leafed by a bright red heart. Indeed a book whose time has come, this is no pusillanimous bibliotherapy; it is, rather, a joyful celebration that at the same time firmly challenges the assumptions established and perpetuated by the entire canon of children’s picture books. Hurrah to newcomers de Haan and Nijland and to the publisher for bringing them to an American audience. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58246-061-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip. The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface. Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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