PRINCESSLAND

A fantasy world of perfect princesses gives a young girl a respite from a bad mood.

Romy is having a blah, listless day, the kind when "Romy didn't even want to be Romy." She yearns for a place called Princessland and sets off to find it with help from the Lady Cat. But the Lady Cat's plan is a little oblique. The feline leads Romy through town, from a bakery to the city square to a park, asking her to describe the finer details of Princessland while promising to take her there. "In Princessland…there are balls every night in enormous, airy rooms lined with marble tiles," Romy rhapsodizes as she and the cat listen to a musician at the market and she imagines a ball. By the end of the day, though Romy has described the destination in detail, she's sad to realize the cat hasn't actually taken her there. But of course, the Lady Cat has done just that, pushing Lola to travel by imagination. Expressive paintings blend the Princessland in Romy's head with city scenes as she and Lady Cat explore. Romy is a dark-skinned little girl with long brown hair and blue eyes, and the princesses are racially diverse if otherwise stereotypically froufrou.

Although not the princess corrective some parents may wish for, the book's little lesson is one worth sharing: what's in the mind’s eye is often more lavish and sweet than the real thing could possibly be.