Echoes of the title story in Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly (1985) reverberate through this original tale of a hidden child of slavery leading her people to freedom. Spirited away by the Prince of Night shortly after her birth, a child grows up invisible to all but the slave master’s blind daughter, Patience. When the slave master threatens to sell her parents, Mama and Papa Love, the Invisible Princess shows herself, and with the help of the Great Powers of Nature takes all the plantation’s slaves, Patience, and even, at last, the repentant slave master to an Invisible Village of Peace, Freedom, and Love. Ringgold (Bonjour, Lonnie, 1996, etc.) loads the story—more fable-like than any of her previous works—with lessons of forgiveness, while the Invisible Princess shines beatifically in turbulent, strongly colored illustrations. (Picture book. 6-8)
