Shannon Hale & Dean Hale (text), LeUyen Pham (artwork) (Walker Books) Princess Magnolia is entertaining nosy Duchess Wigtower with hot chocolate and scones when an alarm sounds. Magnolia plays innocent, blaming noisy birds, but really she knows it signifies a monster has entered the realms of her kingdom, and that her alter ego the Princess in …
princesses
A picturebook a week: The Princess and the Presents
Caryl Hart (text) & Sarah Warburton (illustrations)(Nosy Crow) Princess Ruby is a very spoilt princess and as her birthday approaches, she makes demand after demand, which become gradually more ludicrous. When the fateful day arrives, she eventually is content with her lot, until a disaster threatens to take it all away. But when push comes to …
NATIONAL BOOKSTART WEEK: The Runaway Princess
This week is National Bookstart Week. Bookstart is extremely close to my heart (I have mentioned this before, notably in a major rant here) and such an vital scheme in encouraging a love of books and reading in children that I feel that anyone who is any kind of children’s book enthusiast should all be duty-bound to support. The …
The Jelly That Wouldn’t Wobble
Angela Mitchell (text) & Sarah Horne (illustrations)(Maverick Books) It is Princess Lolly’s 89th birthday and she cannot wait to see her special birthday jelly. But that jelly is looking particularly grumpy and is refusing to wobble. A jelly that doesn’t wobble, who has ever heard of such a thing? So each guest gets a go …
The Worst Princess
Anna Kemp (text) & Sarah Ogilvie (illustrations) (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books) Princess Sue is very lonely in her castle. She yearns for a prince to rescue her from her boredom. But when he finally turns up and takes her to his castle, they soon realise they don’t really see eye to eye as to how princesses …
Goblins
Philip Reeve (Scholastic) In the midst of Clovenstone, an abandoned fortress, live seven clans of blood-thirsty and dim-witted goblins, lead by King Knobbler, a ferocious leader with a secret fondness for frilly knickers. But Skarper is different; he is clever, and cunning and after teaching himself to read using the Goblins’ bumwipe heaps (which turn …
Princess Academy
Shannon Hale (Bloomsbury Children’s Books) When representatives of the king arrive in an isolated mountain village to announce that the priests have divined that the future princess will come from there, fourteen year-old Miri’s life is turned upside down, as are the lives of all of the other girls in the village. For now they must leave the …
The Princess and the Pig
Jonathan Emmett (text) & Poly Bernatene (illustrations)(Macmillan Children’s Books) After a terrible incident in the royal nursery, Pigmella the princess finds herself brought up by a poor but loving family while Priscilla the Pig finds herself in royal household learning the ways of princesses, with difficulty. The poor family who were desperate for a child believe that this …
You Can’t Scare a Princess!
Gillian Rogerson (text) & Sarah McIntyre (illustrations)(Scholastic) When King Cupcake is captured by a crew of the baddest, meanest pirates in the whole wide word, there is only one person fit to go and rescue him: his daughter, feisty and fearless Princess Spaghetti! Captain Waffle may think he is the boldest pirate to sail the seas, …