THE PENGUIN AND THE PEA

More “flappily ever after” from the author of Cinderella Penguin (1992). As before, Perlman stays fairly close to the original tale, adding minor changes and wordplay suggested by the cast’s transformation into penguins—depicted in cartoon illustrations as tubby figures in courtly dress, with big white eyes over carrot-like beaks. The joke was funny once, not so much twice, though younger readers unfamiliar with the previous remake, or its film version, may find it droll. Alain Vaës reworks the Andersen tale more imaginatively in his Princess and the Pea (2001) and Mini Grey tells it from the pea’s point of view in a much cleverer twist called The Very Smart Pea and the Princess-to-Be (2003). (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)