COTTON-WOOLEENA

by Laurence Housman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 19, 1974

The King is one of those familiar, modest fellows who finds his crown a little too warm for comfort and ""would have preferred a cabbage leaf or the cool rind of a cucumber instead."" The Fairy Cotton-Wooleena who lives inside his orb (his royal regalia orb, that is) and who ejects reams of her cotton wool tail to be literally and metaphorically pulled over the eyes of King and counselors is harder to figure out. Cotton-Wooleena claims that she really runs the kingdom, and after the King cuts off part of her tail in a fit of pique she seems determined to do him in -- though the King, by giving away what is believed to be the crown jewels to a burglar, is well on his own way to convincing his ministers that he is more than a little odd. Just as the situation seems hopelessly mad and muddled, the King flings his orb out the palace window and escapes on the clouds of cotton wool that explode in the Fairy's spectacular dying gasp. All that cotton wool no doubt conceals some esoteric implications that adults might want to ponder, but Robert Binks' cartoons stress the atmosphere of utter loonyness that makes even the mild King act crazy in self-defense. Abstract as she is, Cotton-Wooleena works reasonably well on the level of sheer whimsy, and the strain of affectation in Laurence Housman's wit (see The Rat-Catcher's Daughter, KR, p. 244, J-114) is flattered by the small, contemporary-looking format.

Pub Date: April 19, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 64

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories: FICTION