A very bored princess opts for change in this droll take on the Cinderella story. Five days before her 16th Birthday Ball, at which she’s expected to choose her future husband, Princess Patricia Priscilla borrows her chambermaid’s homespun dress, braids her curls and sheds her shoes to escape the palace and masquerade as peasant girl “Pat” in the village school. She quickly develops a crush on the handsome-but-poor young schoolmaster. Meanwhile, her wealthy noble suitors, the repellant Duke of Dyspepsia, the narcissistic Prince of Pustula and the disgusting conjoint Counts of Coagulatia prepare to attend the ball and win the princess. Faced with such totally repulsive choices, the proactive princess invites the whole village to her ball and upsets royal protocol in the best possible way. In her clever fairy-tale reconstruction, Lowry transforms the traditional princess into a refreshingly egalitarian heroine with a mind of her own. The hilarious, original and truly loathsome suitors are aptly memorialized in Feiffer’s spritely black-and-white caricature illustrations. Guaranteed to generate giggles and guffaws. (Fairy tale. 8-12).
Pub Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-547-23869-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2010
A timeless tale of found family, full of Halloween charm.
An orphan winds up in the strange, spooky land of the undead and discovers the home and family she’s always craved.
One Halloween, Eve attempts yet another escape from her awful orphanage and comes across someone completely unexpected in the forest—the Pumpkin King. He’s imposing and has a jack-o’-lantern pumpkin as a head, but Eve, who’s lanky and cued white, refuses to feel fear. Impressed by her verve, he offers to adopt her and make her the Pumpkin Princess of Hallowell Valley, a hidden land populated by all sorts of undead creatures, including vampires, werewolves, and witches. Eve has a lot to learn about her unusual new home, but for the first time ever, she has friends to help. But not everyone in Hallowell is happy about having a living being among them. There are secret, nefarious plans brewing, and in order for Eve to save her new home, she’ll have to confront her fears. This spooky, autumnal take on the classic human-in-a-magical-world scenario is a delightful blend of eerie and heartwarming. The original world feels cozy with its lovable, oddball characters, while the untrustworthy baddies make the tale more exciting. The Pumpkin King is absolutely adorable as a father figure, and his relationship with Eve is precious. The mystery element has surprising twists, but it’s Eve’s finding a place to belong and be loved that will ensnare readers. Rockefeller’s spooky spot art opens each chapter.
A timeless tale of found family, full of Halloween charm. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780316572989
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Essential.
A measured corrective to pervasive myths about what is often referred to as the “first Thanksgiving.”
Contextualizing them within a Native perspective, Newell (Passamaquoddy) touches on the all-too-familiar elements of the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving and its origins and the history of English colonization in the territory now known as New England. In addition to the voyage and landfall of the Mayflower, readers learn about the Doctrine of Discovery that arrogated the lands of non-Christian peoples to European settlers; earlier encounters between the Indigenous peoples of the region and Europeans; and the Great Dying of 1616-1619, which emptied the village of Patuxet by 1620. Short, two- to six-page chapters alternate between the story of the English settlers and exploring the complex political makeup of the region and the culture, agriculture, and technology of the Wampanoag—all before covering the evolution of the holiday. Refreshingly, the lens Newell offers is a Native one, describing how the Wampanoag and other Native peoples received the English rather than the other way around. Key words ranging from estuary to discover are printed in boldface in the narrative and defined in a closing glossary. Nelson (a member of the Leech Lake Band of Minnesota Chippewa) contributes soft line-and-color illustrations of the proceedings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Essential. (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-72637-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
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