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PRINCESS EASY PLEASY

Name: PRINCESS EASY PLEASY
Author: Natasha Sharma
ISBN: 978-8-1819-0335-8

by Natasha Sharma ; illustrated by Priya Kuriyan ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 26, 2016

A lighthearted suggestion that “When in Rome…” is a salutary approach anywhere in the world.

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A comically misnamed Indian princess ruins a series of family vacations.

In Hong Kong the milk’s not right, in China the noodles are too bland, in Singapore the bed’s too hard, and the menagerie in Cambodia doesn’t measure up to the one back home. “Our delicate darling,” fret the princess’s royal parents—ordering the Royal Packer to add a cow, the cook, bedding, and lots of pets to the official baggage list. But when the princess’s demand for a personal elephant causes the overstuffed jetliner to burst, the queen puts her foot down: “NO MORE VACATIONS!” Kuriyan depicts the tantrum-prone princess and her comically dismayed entourage with a range of skin colors nearly as individual as the styles of their brightly patterned traditional dress. Along with such universal funny business as a dog lifting its leg in one chaotic scene and an elephant delivering a massive mound of poop in another, her rollicking cartoons feature sights from each locale. These range from glimpses of the Merlion fountain in Singapore harbor to one of the humorous cautionary road signs (“Don’t be a gama in the land of lama”) placed along the Ladakh region’s northern border. Impelled by boredom, the princess at last agrees to behave like “locals” in future outings and discovers that vacationing in Tibet is “actually quite fun!”

A lighthearted suggestion that “When in Rome…” is a salutary approach anywhere in the world. (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: July 26, 2016

ISBN: 978-8-1819-0335-8

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Karadi Tales

Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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THE GIRL WHO LOVED WILD HORSES

by Paul Goble ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1978

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There are many parallel legends – the seal women, for example, with their strange sad longings – but none is more direct than this American Indian story of a girl who is carried away in a horses’ stampede…to ride thenceforth by the side of a beautiful stallion who leads the wild horses. The girl had always loved horses, and seemed to understand them “in a special way”; a year after her disappearance her people find her riding beside the stallion, calf in tow, and take her home despite his strong resistance. But she is unhappy and returns to the stallion; after that, a beautiful mare is seen riding always beside him. Goble tells the story soberly, allowing it to settle, to find its own level. The illustrations are in the familiar striking Goble style, but softened out here and there with masses of flowers and foliage – suitable perhaps for the switch in subject matter from war to love, but we miss the spanking clean design of Custer’s Last Battle and The Fetterman Fight. 6-7

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1978

ISBN: 0689845049

Page Count: -

Publisher: Bradbury

Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
RED CLOUD'S WAR
by Paul Goble ; illustrated by Paul Goble ; introduction by Robert Lewis

- BOOK REVIEW
ALL OUR RELATIVES
by Paul Goble & illustrated by Paul Goble

- BOOK REVIEW
SONG OF CREATION
by Paul Goble & illustrated by Paul Goble

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THOSE BUILDING MEN

by Angela Johnson & illustrated by Barry Moser ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2001

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Vague text and anemic pictures make this at best a half-hearted tribute to the construction workers of the last century or so. In her brief, poetic text Johnson writes of “those shadowy building men . . . moving the earth to connect water,” of “railroad workers . . . who were there to connect all.” She continues: “As buildings tower above us / they tell the tales / of the cities . . . They whisper down past it all and say, / ‘They built us, your fathers . . .’ ” There is little here to engage child readers, either intellectually or emotionally, and Moser’s remote, indistinct portraits of ordinary-looking men (only men) dressed in sturdy working clothes and, mostly, at rest, only intermittently capture any sense of individual or collective effort. In evident recognition of these inadequacies, a prose afterword has been added to explain what the book is about—a superfluous feature had Moser and Johnson produced work up to their usual standards. Let readers spend time more profitably with the likes of John Henry or Mike Mulligan. (Picture book. 6-8)