Dangerously Ever After

July 9, 2012
Princess Amanita likes poisonous and dangerous things, and she grows them in her garden: her heckle-berries insult passersby and the stink lilies smell “like a mixture of dog food, cabbage, and Limburger cheese.” Cheerful Prince Florian shows up with roses, whose thorns attract Amanita, and she pens a note requesting rose seeds from his gardener. But her handwriting is bad; the seeds grow not roses, but—noses. The rest of the tale is equally unpredictable, but Amanita winds up humbled and more ready to be friends with Florian. Slater (The Sea Serpent and Me) stuffs every sentence with inventive detail, like the grenapes that explode when Florian slices some off the vine. Docampo’s (The House at the End of Ladybug Lane) illustrations have a stylish, edgy feel; Amanita’s tight bodice, made-up eyes, and carefully styled hair give her the air of a pop star, though by the end of the story she’s let her hair down. A sophisticated romp that serves as a reminder that girls can be mean and unpleasant and boys at their mercy. Ages 5–8. Agent: Felicia Eth Literary Representation. Illustrator’s Agent: MB Artists.

August 15, 2012
A story about a princess who relishes danger, illustrated with incongruous glossiness. Princess Amanita loves anything perilous, from "her pet scorpion, and her brakeless bicycle, and her collection of daggers and broken glass" to a sporting walk, blindfolded, at a moat's edge. Prince Florian (from a neighboring kingdom) accidentally blows a hole in her wheelbarrow by cutting, from her vine, an apparent bunch of grapes that are actually "grenapes"--they "explode three seconds after being picked." Apologetic, he brings roses (new to Amanita, but luckily they've got thorns). She demands rose seeds to grow more thorns, but instead receives nose seeds due to an ambiguously handwritten note. Humor and wordplay--grape + grenade = grenape; nose plants rather than rose plants--sit alongside the danger theme, never quite meshing. Theme notwithstanding, Amanita's shown in peril only late in the story, and few pages feature an aesthetically threatening vibe. Not only do most of Amanita's dangerous things go without depiction, the garden, "filled with prickles and stickles and brambles and nettles," shows many cactus spikes as blunt-tipped. Despite much texturing, Docampo's bright colors and stylized, dominantly curving lines feel more slick than dangerous, though Amanita's scorpion-sting hairdo is nicely menacing. Given that feisty, dirt-or-danger-loving princesses are almost a subgenre of princess books, don't choose this one first. (Picture book. 4-7)

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2012

K-Gr 2-Princess Amanita loves dangerous things: her pet scorpion, her dagger collection and, above all, her garden of menacing and unusual plants. When Prince Florian arrives from a neighboring kingdom with a bouquet of pink roses, she doesn't quite know what to do with the unknown flowers; the buds promptly get put into some water so the dangerous thorns can be displayed. When a misunderstanding leads the prince to send Amanita nose plants instead of rose plants, she decides to take them back to his castle. Of course, once out of the safety of her home, she realizes that maybe she doesn't like danger as much as she thought. Luckily, the nose plants help lead her to the prince's castle where the noses and roses live happily ever after... and it's implied that so, too, do the prince and princess. Docampo's artwork is detailed with a whimsical French flair; it brings to mind the works of Nicoletta Ceccoli and Giselle Potter. Younger listeners will likely tire of the longer text, but older children will giggle at the snot joke and imaginative plant names. There is also a fun spread where the princess is exhausted by the nose plants' all-night sneezing; kids might be glad to see the slightly sullen and spoiled princess get her comeuppance. However, even with its lovely artwork, this title doesn't stand out from the pack of girl-power and princess books already flooding the shelves.-Laura Lutz, Pratt Institute, New York City

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.