The Princess and the Peas by Caryl Hart (review)

In this rhyming story, little Lily-Rose May leads an idyllic life in her cottage in the wood until “one day, her daddy tried feeding her peas.” Lily’s aversion to the wee green monsters is swift and complete (“I’m going to be terribly, horribly sick!”), to the point that her father calls in the doctor. The doctor assesses Lily-Rose May as being allergic to peas, which means, as he supports with a slightly altered version of “The Princess and the Pea,” that she’s a princess. Off to the palace Lily-Rose May goes, only to find that royal life is an awful lot of drudgery and that ultimately she’d rather be back home with her dad, even if it means she must eat peas. A goofy fairy-tale mashup with some modern touches, the story gets away with its logical peculiarities because the rollicking anapestical verse is so much fun (“We know you’ve been having a terrible time./ Your own dad gave you peas! What a hideous crime”). There’s also plenty of humor to be mined from the oversized illustrations, a pell-mell combination of sweet digital hues (with an emphasis on pink, of course, when Lily finally makes princess) and spindly scrawled lines; the overstuffed scenes have a slightly homespun, off-kilter look that adds to amusement, and viewers will appreciate details such as the doctor’s splay-legged run and the colony of Disneyesque critters that surround Lily’s woodland home. Don’t try to figure out the message in this one; just prepare for a dramatic readaloud and use it as a springboard to talk about dealbreakers for princesshood.