The Worst Princess. By Anna
Kemp. Illustrations by Sara Ogilvie. Random House. $16.99.
I Pledge Allegiance. By Pat
Mora & Libby Martinez. Illustrated by Patrice Barton. Knopf. $16.99.
Abuelo. By Arthur Dorros.
Illustrated by Raúl Colón. Harper. $17.99.
It can be fun to play games
with well-worn notions – and fun in a very different way to explore them. The Worst Princess is very much on the “enjoyment”
side of things, taking the specific well-worn notion of a princess being rescued by a
prince and living happily ever after – and turning it upside-down. This princess is initially quite willing
to go along with fairy-tale traditions, and she waits and waits for her prince
to come – but when he finally does, he turns out to be, in her own word, a
“twit,” and she soon finds that her adventurous spirit cannot handle being
confined in the traditional princely castle, wearing the traditional
rescued-princess gowns, and doing what the prince says: “Just smile a lot and
twist your curls./ Dragon-bashing’s not for girls.” Well, maybe not, but this princess has her own ideas about
dragons, and bashing is not among them. Sure enough, a dragon does show up, but
instead of screaming for help, the princess forms an alliance with the
fire-breather – after all, neither of them thinks much of the prince: “The
dragon sniffed, then with two snorts,/ set alight the princely shorts!” And
leaving the prince with his bottom aflame – well, actually sitting in a
convenient pond, facing a sword-wielding, crown-wearing frog – princess and
dragon race off together, “making mischief left and right/ for royal twits and
naughty knights,” and then having a nice spot of tea before their next
adventure. The whole turned-on-its-head approach of Anna Kemp’s story, with its
delightfully apt versifying, is well complemented by Sara Ogilvie’s wonderfully
silly illustrations, and although The
Worst Princess will not by itself undo the attraction of fairy tales – and
does not really intend to – it is certainly a salutary alternative to the more
insipid notions of “proper” role models for princes and princesses alike. And
dragons, for that matter.
A far more serious look at a
tradition, in this case a real-world one in the United States, I Pledge Allegiance is an
age-appropriate look at what citizenship means, and stands as a loving tribute
by Pat Mora and her daughter, Libby Martinez, to Libby’s real-life great-aunt,
around whose experience the book is built. A Mexican immigrant who became a
U.S. citizen in her 70s, Libby’s great-aunt explained that the American flag
made her feel “safe and warm,” and that is just what she says in this slightly fictionalized
story to a little girl named, yes, Libby. In the book, Libby calls her
great-aunt “Lobo,” meaning “wolf,” and it is a nickname of endearment – created
in the real world, the authors explain, because Libby’s real-world great-aunt
used to refer to the children as her lobitos
(little wolves). The sense of endearment and close family connections pervades I Pledge Allegiance, which on the
surface is the story of an elderly woman preparing to become a U.S. citizen,
with little Libby helping by herself learning the Pledge of Allegiance and memorizing
it. There are legitimate concerns today about immigration issues – indeed, such
concerns are as old as the United States itself – but this is a wholly
apolitical book, and one whose focus on old-fashioned patriotism and love of
country should appeal to families of all political viewpoints. The Pledge of
Allegiance was far simpler when written in 1892 by Baptist minister and
socialist Francis Bellamy (1855-1931) – it was a reaction to the decline in
patriotic feeling as memories of the Civil War faded, and it simply said, “I
pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Mora and Martinez note at the
end of their book that the pledge has been modified four times (more
accurately, written once and modified three times), but they avoid any
explanation of the changes and the controversy associated with them – for
instance, the addition of “under God” in 1954 as a response to the perceived
systemic atheism of Communism. What the authors want in I Pledge Allegiance – and what they get, thanks partly to the warmly
humanizing illustrations of Patrice Barton and mostly to their memories of Libby’s
real-life great-aunt – is to show why life in the United States is still so
meaningful and important to so many people whose birth was elsewhere.
Lobo does not forget her
Mexican roots just because of her new citizenship, and the importance of
heritage is made even clearer in Abuelo,
another family-focused book whose fictional story is based on a real one. In
this case, the setting is Argentina, with Arthur Dorros recounting a tale based
on the life of one of his friends and the friend’s abuelo gaucho (grandfather cowboy). In the book itself, in well-written
prose seasoned with Spanish words that are clearly explained and do not slow
down the reading for English-only speakers, Dorros recounts the story of a
young boy, now older and remembering “when I was little” (the book’s first
words, reminiscent of “once upon a time” in fairy tales). The boy recalls long
rides with his abuelo, daytime
mountain climbing, rainy days, clear nights filled with starshine, even an
encounter with a mountain lion. The events are everyday ones – everyday on the
Argentine pampas, in any case – and
are lovingly shown in Raúl Colón’s atmospheric illustrations. And
the story’s meaning only becomes clear later in the book, as the boy remembers
moving away from the place where his abuelo
lived – to the city, with a whole new set of challenges, which he is able to
meet in part because of what he learned on horseback from his abuelo. “Little by little, I began to
know the city. It was wide in different ways, like La Pampa.” The transition from countryside to city is in some ways
very different from the experience of moving to an entire new nation, but its
challenges are in other ways similar, and retaining family traditions and
meanings is a very important way of coping with the new and difficult times
brought by any major transition. The sensitivity with which the story of Abuelo is told and illustrated should
resonate with any family that has to handle major life changes and needs to
look at its own foundational beliefs and relationships in order to build a new
life under new circumstances.
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