The Big Princess by Taro Miura (review)

In this companion book to The Tiny King, Miura gives the backstory of the Tiny King’s beloved Big Princess. A king dreams of a white bird, who promises him that he will find a child in the royal garden, but also warns that this princess is under a spell that must be broken. The king does indeed find a tiny girl on a little leaf in his garden, and his wife puts her to bed on a feather. By the next night, the girl has grown and needs a bigger bed—a ring box suffices—but the following night she’s outgrown that as well. This continuing runaway growth threatens to destroy the castle, until the king notices a shiny black seed in the girl’s bellybutton. When he pulls out the seed, the princess shrinks to a more normal—but still tall—height, and the seed, when planted, spawns a field of sunflowers. This is an intriguing original fairy tale, and the language effectively utilizes the mild formality of a classic tale: “The king turned around, and there, perched on a dew-speckled leaf, was a lovely, tiny princess.” It’s the book’s tall, narrow trim size, though, and the bold graphic design of the digital collage illustrations that really take center stage here. Simple shapes of solid colors constitute the figures, and the backgrounds, with vintage art elements, photographs, and realia occasionally integrated into the mix. The rosycheeked, yellow-pigtailed princess in her vermilion dress appropriately stands out against her surroundings, and a giggle-worthy paper foldout displays her considerable height, as she outgrows the castle so that her huge head rises above the turret and her seed-studded bellybutton peeks out of a castle window. Share this with its companion book or perhaps with Pizzoli’s equally sleekly designed The Watermelon Seed (BCCB 6/13) for a twist on the seed/tummy theme.