THE PRINCESS AND THE PEE

A modern fairy tale about a princess dealing with incontinence.

Princess Amma can’t stop fretting about wetting the bed. The queen, the king, and the household staffers all have absurd suggestions: eating dry toast before bedtime to soak up the pee, sleeping with lemons nearby, and putting feather dusters by the toilet so that the princess can “giggle all her pee out before she goes to bed.” None of them work, and the concept of tickling a child on the toilet might raise eyebrows among adult readers. Grandma Grace, however, is a gentle, soothing force. “My darling Amma, a little bit of pee will NEVER come between you and me,” she croons to the child during a bubble bath. She tells the girl stories and sings lullabies until “slowly there was no room left for any worries.” The next morning, Amma wakes up in a dry bed. Adults trying to help little ones with their own bedwetting woes may find this resolution a bit simplistic; real-life incontinence isn’t so quickly rectified. Still, Grandma Grace models wonderfully supportive behavior, and the use of whimsy and humor helps make a potentially embarrassing topic feel a little easier to grapple with. Bright, textured artwork depicts a palace with modern elements such as rubber duckies in the bathroom. Amma and her family present Black; the staffers are diverse.

A sweet, zesty approach to a common and underdiscussed issue.