GOOD NIGHT, PRINCESS PRUNEY TOES

Tooth-achingly sweet but winning is this bedtime tale of a princess and her royal father from the team that produced It's Time for School, Stinky Face (2000) and its predecessors. Out of her bath steps Princess Pruney Toes, ready for the royal drying before stepping into her spun-gold gown. (Her father had earlier proffered crocodile jammies. Imagine. "My mistake, your highness," Sir Daddy apologized.) He then suggests to the princess that she might like a bedtime snack of a star of bread with magical jam. "What sort of magic will you use?" asks the princess. "Magic spice," says Sir Daddy. "There was a sale in aisle nine." A song is sung, a dragon disguised as a family dog tries to steal the royal snack, a short flight is taken on angel's wings to bed, but not before Sir Daddy requests a royal dance. That's enough to melt even this princess's playacting. Having wished on a star, she asks, "Do you know what I wished for, Daddy?" He asks what. "To be your most special and favorite girl forever and ever." Wish granted. Artwork as color-shot and fleeting as pixie dust accompanies McCourt's jubilant, honeyed observance of the father-daughter bond. (Picture book. 3-7)