PRINCESS ELLA AND THE GREAT SQUIRREL CHASE

Princess Ella learns the impermanence of material possessions in Waldecker’s picture book.

When the fair-skinned, blonde Princess Ella’s father, the king, comes home to her relatively modest attic room, he gives her a candy sucker from the store. Ella promptly loses her candy while swinging, and when she asks a squirrel to retrieve it for her, the creature steals it instead. Ella pursues the squirrel across the yard, through the woods, and “even on the trampoline.” When she finally catches the squirrel in a net, he hands the sucker back—but it is covered in slobber and hair, so she relinquishes it to him. This simple story of a child exploring her freedom to play and experience minor setbacks with parental support is told in short sentences with predictable characters suitable for bedtime. Geyer’s pared-down jewel-tone digital cartoons effectively communicate the vaguely fantasy background, with a few detailed flowers and birds for young readers to look at, layered over two-dimensional symbolic trees and bushes. Ella appears in many ways to be a conventional princess, with long hair, dress, and headband, but concessions are made to a more active, agency-oriented femininity: She wears a knife at her belt, and has practical leather boots on her feet.

A model for handling small setbacks with a sense of humor.