Anne Wilsdorf

Loosely based on the story of the Princess and the Pea, this is a light and humorous fairy tale. The illustrations are whimsical and the text is at times witty and clever. My son read the book to me, and whereas the dragon names are a bit hard to pronounce, he enjoyed the story of the four dragons to conquer. There's a hint of social criticism in the text, as one princess turns out to be not a good match for our prince since she's too obsessed with watching TV and another is hygiene obsessed, the third is violent, the fourth is vain. The dragons are appropriately named Videopteryx, Antiseptyx, etc. and there are other hints of play on words. Of course the common girl ends up being the best of the lot.… (more)

A young prince is off to search for his princess. His mother gives him a list of princesses and warns him he must fight the dragons protecting the girls. As he fights off each dragon, he realizes he does not like any of the girls. They are either too lazy, narcissist, or rude. The prince returns home and meets a Shepard's daughter. The queen wants see if she is a real princess, and puts a pea under a tower of mattresses. If she is real princess, she will wake up with bruises from the pea. The girl gets up in the middle of the night, and falls off. The queen sees the bruises and approves of the marriage.
I really liked this book because it taught not to judge people. The queen only wanted royalty for her son, yet a common girl is the one who made the prince really happy. The big lesson of the story to me was not to discriminate towards other people. It is cute how it redid a classic fairy tale. This book is great for children ages 4-7. Boys can also enjoy this because of the dragon fighting. It uses a higher vocabulary, so they can learn new words. A reading teacher might use this book to introduce new vocabulary words or to teach children not to judge a book by its cover.… (more)