Chil­dren’s

Fit For a Princess

Risa Rot­man; Tova Leff, illus.
  • Review
By – January 30, 2012
This pic­ture book for young read­ers begins with a cap­ti­vat­ing sto­ry. The author calls the main char­ac­ter, The Busy Princess” as she is giv­en many impor­tant jobs in the king­dom by her father, the king. She is no ordi­nary spoiled princess who spends her time on friv­o­lous mat­ters such as look­ing in the mir­ror all day, count­ing her mon­ey, or play­ing with gold­en toys. This princess was in charge of the kingdom’s library and gar­den. But doing these impor­tant jobs prop­er­ly is impos­si­ble while wear­ing her stuffy roy­al cloth­ing. For instance, when shelv­ing the books in the library, her crown would fall off, and when water­ing the gar­den, her long gown would get caught in the hose. The Busy Princess” decides to ask her advi­sors for ideas for new cloth­ing that would elim­i­nate her prob­lems while she per­formed her jobs. She gets many inter­est­ing sug­ges­tions and when she tries some of them, the peo­ple of her king­dom do not rec­og­nize her and give her the prop­er greet­ings and respect deserv­ing of a princess. She does try many love­ly out­fits and designs from dif­fer­ent cul­tures of the world, but she becomes con­fused with so many choic­es. The end result of her cloth­ing choice is mod­ern and mod­est, and she sports the typ­i­cal look of a young obser­vant girl. At the end of the book, the author states that this princess is Jew­ish and her king is Hashem. The dis­ap­point­ment for this read­er was the abrupt change in the rhythm of the sto­ry when it con­cludes. After the fun of the many cloth­ing choic­es shown both on the princess and in draw­ings, we see her at the end of the sto­ry dressed as a mod­est girl with long sleeves, tights, a head­band, a cape, and a lol­lipop-look­ing scepter. The words on the page show­ing this out­fit and our princess are: From then on, every­one could see exact­ly what was fit for a princess.” The last page shows a procla­ma­tion on parch­ment say­ing: Dear Jew­ish Daugh­ter, We can be proud to dress in our own unique way, because we are all daugh­ters of Hashem, our King.” So, sud­den­ly, what seemed to be a delight­ful fairy tale turns moral­is­tic and preachy. This book could have been more suc­cess­ful with a sub­tler mes­sage. Ages 3 – 6.
Elaine Har­ris has been a pre-school teacher at South Penin­su­la Hebrew Day School in Sun­ny­vale, CA for 15 years.

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