The Talking Eggs by Robert D. San Souci, pictures by Jerry Pinkney, 1989.
There was a poor widow who lived on a small farm with her two daughters, Rose and Blanche. Rose was the widow’s favorite daughter because she was so much like her mother. They were both mean and bad-tempered, and they had grand dreams of becoming rich someday, although neither of them had the slightest idea how to accomplish that. Blanche, on the other hand, was a sweet girl, and her mother made her do all the work while she and Rose just sat on the porch, talking about all of their grand dreams.
One day, when Blanche goes to fetch water from the well, an old woman approaches her and begs her for a drink. Blanche gives her some water, and the old woman thanks her, telling her that she will be blessed for her kindness.
However, when Blanche gets home, her mother and sister yell at her for taking so long. They hit her, and Blanche runs away into the woods. Then, she meets the old woman again. She explains to the old woman what happened, and the old woman invites her to come to her house. However, she cautions Blanche not to laugh at what she sees there. Blanche promises that she won’t laugh.
The old woman is no ordinary woman, and everything at her house is strange. Some of these strange things are amusing, some are amazing, and some are just plain weird and a little alarming. The animals are all strange, with chickens of different colors and cows with curly horns. Then, inside the house, the old woman removes her head and puts it in her lap to brush her hair. Then, the woman produces a fancy stew from just one old bone. After supper, they go outside and watch rabbits in fancy clothing dance.
In the morning, the old woman tells Blanche to go out and gather some eggs before she goes home. Blanche is allowed to take any that tell her to take them and to leave ones that say not to take them. Blanche does as she is told, although the ones that tell her to take them are the plain-looking eggs, and the others are covered in jewels. The old woman tells Blanche to throw the eggs over her shoulder, one at a time, and when she does so, the eggs break and wonderful things burst out of them – fancy clothes, coins and jewels, and even a horse and carriage.
By the time Blanche gets home, she has many beautiful clothes, money, and luxurious things. Blanche’s mother pretends to be nice to her when she returns, but it’s only so Blanche will tell her where she got all the rich things. That night, when Blanche is asleep, her mother talks to Rose, telling her that she should also befriend the old woman and get the same rich rewards as Blanche. Then, they will steal all of Blanche’s things and head to the city to live the rich life that they’ve always dreamed of.
Of course, lazy and bad-tempered Rose isn’t as kind or hard-working as her sister. She ignores the old woman’s instructions and does everything she shouldn’t do. When she tries to force the old woman to give her riches, the old woman’s magic gives her and her mother their just desserts.
There is a note at the beginning of the book that this story comes from a Creole folktale that appeared in a 19th century collection of folktales from Louisiana by Alcee Fortier. It resembles folktales from Europe was probably adapted from fairy tales brought to Louisiana by French immigrants. It reminds me of the Mother Holle story, where a kind, well-behaved, hard-working girl is rewarded for following Mother Holle’s instructions, while her spoiled sister is punished for laziness and disobedience.
The old woman in this story is a similar figure to Mother Holle, with strange powers and magical objects, but there is no explanation of who she might be. The fact that she can remove her head just to brush her hair shows that she’s supernatural, but we don’t know if she’s supposed to be a witch or some other supernatural creature.
Personally, I don’t think I would laugh at any of the things in the old woman’s house. I think the strange animals sound more amazing than comical. I think I’d really be impressed by the different-colored chickens and the cows with the weird horns. I have to admit, though, that if someone takes off their head, my first reaction would probably be to run for it.
After the Sun Sets by Miriam Blanton Huber, Frank Seely Salisbury, and Mabel O’Donnell; illustrated by Nellie H. Farnam and Mary Royt; 1938, 1953, 1962.
This was my favorite book of fairy tales when I was a kid! I gave away my copy years ago and regretted it, but I was thrilled to find another copy later at an antique/vintage mall.
The collection includes some popular fairy tales that you can find in other fairy tale collections, like Cinderella, Brier Rose (the Sleeping Beauty story), and Hansel and Gretel. It also has some stories that are less commonly known these days, like Aiken-Drum, the Brownie and Prince Hal and the Giant. When I was young, my favorite stories in the book, the ones I read over and over, were Snow-White and Rose-Red, The Princess on the Glass Hill, and East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
One of the things that makes this collection unique is that it includes a section of poems at the back of the book. I love the one called Cinderella’s Song, and it was one of the reasons why I missed this collection so badly. I don’t think I’ve seen that poem in any other book.
The illustrations in the book are beautiful! I loved them as a child, and I still find them enchanting as an adult. Some are in black-and-white, but some are in full color.
I didn’t realize it when I was a kid, but this book is actually the third book in a series, The Wonder-Story Books, and it was a unit in The Row, Peterson Basic Reading Program. I have the 1962 edition, but the book is actually older than that. Its copyright was renewed multiple times.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. There is also an earlier edition of this book available through Internet Archive, and it doesn’t have the section of poetry included, so the poetry might only appear in the 1962 edition.
Stories:
Aiken-Drum, the Brownie
Aiken Drum is a Brownie, a magical little man who likes to do chores for other people for little reward. Reward a Brownie too much, and he will leave.
Pat and the Fairies
Pat joins the fairies in a dance, and they loan him a pair of shoes when his wear out. When he later comes to return the shoes, he gets a wonderful reward. A greedy shoemaker tries to join the fairies in their dance and borrow a pair of shoes to get the same reward, but the fairies punish him when he tries to cheat them.
Change About
A husband grumbles about how little his wife accomplishes in the course of a day while she minds the house and their child and he works out in the fields. The husband and wife decide to switch places for a day to prove which of them works harder, and the husband has a surprise about what really happens at home while he’s away.
Cinderella
A girl who is abused by her stepmother and stepsisters receives magical gifts from her fairy godmother so she is able to attend the prince’s ball.
Snow-White and Rose-Red
A widow and her two daughters let a gentle talking bear spend the winter with them so he won’t freeze, but this bear is under a spell.
Snip, The Tailor
A tailor sets out to make his fortune. He uses his wits to defeat a pair of giants and win a castle and half the kingdom from the king.
Brier Rose
This is the Sleeping Beauty story. A young princess is cursed by a bad fairy. When she hurts her hand on a spindle, she and everyone in her castle falls asleep for a hundred years.
Prince Hal and the Giant
Prince Hal is the youngest of a king’s seven sons. The other six have left home to find brides and have never returned home. No one knows what happened to them. Prince Hal sets out to find what happened to his brothers. He finds out that they and their brides have been turned into stone statues in the house of a giant. Prince Hal must find a way to save them and the princess who has become the giant’s latest captive.
Hansel and Gretel
A pair of children are abandoned in the woods, and they find a strange house made of gingerbread. They are almost eaten by the witch who lives in the house.
The Princess on the Glass Hill
Every year on Midsummer Night, the hay disappears from a farmer’s field. Each of his sons tries to find out why, but each of them is frightened by the strange things that happen, until the youngest son faces the phenomenon and discovers a strange horse with a coat of mail that fits him perfectly. The same thing happens twice more so that the youngest son acquires three fine horses and three sets of mail. He keeps them secret at first, but later, he uses them to perform an amazing feat and ride to the top of a glass hill to win the hand of a princess.
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
A white bear comes to a family with many children and says that he will make them rich if the eldest daughter, Freda, will come with him. At first, she doesn’t want to go, but when she does, he takes her to a magical castle. Unfortunately, she disobeys the bear’s instructions while she’s there. He is under a witch’s spell, and Freda must find a way to undo the damage she’s caused and break his spell, following him to the witch’s castle by riding the winds, east of the sun and west of the moon.
Stories in Poetry:
I Keep Three Wishes Ready by Annette Wynne – It’s good to know what you want to wish for, just in case you get the chance.
At the Zoo by A. A. Milne – There are many fascinating things to see in a zoo!
Some One by Walter de la Mare – Someone knocked at the door. Who?
Little Nut Tree by Mother Goose – A traditional rhyme about a magical tree. One of my favorites!
The Duel by Eugene Field – The gingham dog and the calico cat have a fight.
Queen Mab by Thomas Hood – About the fairy queen and how she gives pleasant dreams to children.
Cinderella’s Song by Elizabeth Madox Roberts – Cinderella confides her secret to her cat.
Trees by Harry Behn – Trees are wonderful things!
The Story of the Baby Squirrel by Dorothy Aldis – A child finds a baby squirrel and raises it. When it grows up, it runs away, but they think he’s probably still living with the other squirrels nearby. They sometimes see a squirrel who seems to be saying hello to them.
The Hens by Elizabeth Madox Roberts – It sounds like the hens are talking, but what are they saying?
Roads by Rachel Field – Roads might lead anywhere and to all sorts of wonderful things!
Washington by Nancy Byrd Turner – About George Washington. This one seems like an odd inclusion to me, adding a poem about a historical figure to a collection that has more fairy tale themes.
Princess Hyacinth by Florence Parry Heide, illustrated by Lane Smith, 2009.
For reasons nobody understands, Princess Hyacinth is not affected by gravity, and she floats upward anytime she is not restrained or weighted down.
It’s a real problem because, while it’s difficult enough when she floats up to the ceiling of the palace, if she were allowed out of the palace without something weighing her down, she would simply float away.
Princess Hyacinth’s parents go to great lengths to make sure that she is always secured to something or weighed down with special weighted clothes and a very heavy crown.
Of course, being weighted down all of the time makes life difficult for Princess Hyacinth, too. She wishes that she could go outside and play and swim with the other children, but she can’t because she can’t be outside without the weights. There is one boy in particular who comes by her window with a kite with a crown on it and says hello to her, but it would be difficult for her to go out and play with him.
Then, one day, when Princess Hyacinth is particularly bored and tired of being weighted down, she persuades a balloon man to tie a string to her and let her float among his balloons. At first, it’s fun, floating along as the balloon man walks through the park, but then, the balloon man is startled by a dog and accidentally lets go of her!
As Princess Hyacinth floats upward into the sky, she is thrilled because she has never felt so free in her life, but where will it end? How high can she go, and is there any way for her to get back? Fortunately, there is a way for her to get home, with the help of a friend!
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
This story reminded me of a much-older story from the 19th century, The Light Princess, but this picture book is much, much less serious than that book. In The Light Princess, the princess is cursed, and the story is about breaking this curse that has afflicted her all of life. In this book, there is never any explanation about why Princess Hyacinth isn’t affected by gravity, and she is never cured. Instead, she makes a friend who helps her find a way to live with her condition and enjoy it.
I liked the art style in this book. I found it amusing that the king, queen, and palace guards are drawn in the style of the face cards in a deck of playing cards. Princess Hyacinth is a cute little girl, and when she’s wearing her heavy princess gear, you can almost feel the weight of it on her. In the end, there are still times when she has to be tied down, but she seems more normal, less weighted down, because she has found someone to help her deal with her condition.
The Shoemaker’s Boy by Joan Aiken, illustrated by Victor G. Ambrus, 1991, 1994.
Jem’s father is a shoemaker, and Jem is learning his trade. However, things take a bad turn when his mother suddenly becomes ill. It’s a strange kind of illness. She sleeps all the time, can’t eat, and is hardly breathing. The doctors can’t seem to help her, so Jem’s father decides to go on a pilgrimmage to St. James in Spain and pray for his wife to get better.
While he’s gone, Jem has to mind the family business and look after his mother. Jem’s father has a reputation as a incredible shoemaker, with people coming to see him even from other kingdoms, and Jem is worried that he won’t be able to maintain the business on his own because he’s still learning the trade. However, since nothing else seems to help his mother, it seems like his father’s holy pilgrimage is their last hope.
While his father is away, Jem tries his best, but he finds it difficult to keep up with the orders that come in for shoes. He falls behind on his work, and money is running short. Then, one day, he has a strange encounter with three little men, who are only the size of young children. They are all dressed in green, and they ask Jem for the three silver keys. Jem doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but the men say that they were sent to ask him for them because someone was supposed to leave the keys with him. Jem says that nobody has left any keys with him, and suddenly, the little men vanish! At first, Jem thinks that maybe he imagined the whole thing, but this is just the beginning of a series of strange happenings.
Late that night, there is a knock on the door, and when Jem answers it, he is confronted by a knight wearing black. The knight says that he wants Jem to make him a pair of boots because he’s heard that the boots from this shop are the best. Jem doesn’t want the knight to be disappointed, so he explains to him about his father being away and that he is not as good as his father at making boots. The knight appreciates his honesty and says that he will try Jem’s work anyway. He promises Jem an excellent fee for his services if the boots are ready by morning, and to Jem’s surprise, he also asks Jem if someone has left three silver keys for him. Jem tells him that nobody has left any keys with him, and the knight says that someone may leave them by the time the boots are ready, and he asks Jem to take good care of them.
Jem works on the boots through the night, and he’s making good progress when, in the middle of the night, a second knight arrives. The second knight is dressed in white. This knight doesn’t want any boots or shoes. Instead, he asks Jem to take care of a little packet for him while he runs an errand. He says that he has heard that Jem is very trustworthy, and he says that if he doesn’t return by morning, Jem can keep the packet. Jem agrees that he will take care of the packet and make sure no one else touches it.
The rest of the night is very strange. While Jem works hard on finishing the last boot, he hears strange sounds outside, and he thinks that he can hear the little men and the black knight calling out for the mysterious keys. What does it all mean? Are the keys in the packet left by the white knight, and if so, what are they for?
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
This is a short, easy beginning chapter book, and it’s a nice story with a Medieval setting, written in the style of an old fairy tale. The story leaves a few questions unanswered at the end. We never really find out who the two knights are or who the little men are, although there are implications that they are supernatural. I think that they also have religious significance, tying them to Jem’s father’s pilgrimage. The contents of the white knight’s packet are not obvious, but it is the solution to Jem’s main problem. When Jem’s father returns home, he also has some information about Jem’s mysterious visitors, although he doesn’t have all the answers, either. Readers know enough at the end to appreciate that Jem made the right decision when he handled the packet and that his experiences were partly a test of his character.
The book mentions Jem’s father putting a scallop shell on his cap when he’s about to begin his pilgrimage. The scallop shell is a symbol of St. James, one of the original Twelve Apostles. The place where Jem’s father was going on his pilgrimage, the shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela in Spain is a real place that has been a popular site of religious pilgrimages for centuries. After Jesus was crucified, His disciples traveled to other places to spread the word about Jesus and gain new converts to the new religion of Christianity. St. James went to what is now Spain, and after teaching there, he eventually returned to Jerusalem. It isn’t entirely clear what happened to his body after he died, but one of the stories is that his followers brought his body back to Spain and buried it at the site now known as Santiago de Compostela. St. James is now the patron saint of Spain, and pilgrims who visit Santiago de Compostela often collect a scallop shell as a souvenir of their journey. Actually, that is the one complaint that I have about this book. In the story, Jem’s father puts on a scallop shell as he begins his journey, but in real life, Medieval pilgrims usually used the shell as a sign of completion of their journey.
The Red Cross Knight, who carries a shield decorated with a red cross, does not know his own name or even where he came from. He only knows that the Queen of the Fairies has sent him to face a terrible dragon. He is accompanied on his journey by a princess with a little white lamb and a dwarf. The Princess’s name is Una, and her kingdom is being attacked by the dragon.
On their journey, they meet a hermit, who shows the knight a distant palace on a mountaintop, where angels travel between the palace and heaven. It’s so beautiful that the knight wants to go there immediately, but the hermit says that this palace is in another world and that he cannot go there until he faces the dragon. The hermit also reveals the knight’s past to him. He is not one of the fairy folk, although the fairy folk are the ones who sent him. The hermit knows that he was kidnapped by the fairies as a baby and hidden in a farm field, where he was discovered by a plowman who named him George. His true destiny is to become Saint George, the patron saint of England.
Una takes George to her parents’ fortress. As they approach, they see the dragon for the first time. George sends Una away from danger, and he and the dragon battle for the first time. The dragon picks up George, horse and all, and throws them to the ground. George manages to drive the dragon away, but he is also injured. At first, he and his friends think he is going to die, but he lies down in an ancient spring that cools and heals him. By morning, he is able to rise and fight again.
The second time George fights the dragon, he is able to cut off part of the dragon’s tail and one of its paws. The dragon’s fire finally drives George away, and once again, George seems too wounded to survive. However, he rests under an apple tree that drops healing dew, and George survives.
The third time George and the dragon fight, George manages to kill the dragon. Everyone celebrates, and Una’s parents thank George. The king gives George rich rewards, but George passes them on to the poor people. George is bound to the service of the Fairy Queen for six years, but the king allows George to marry Una and promises him that he will become the next king when his service is finished.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I love the colorful illustrations in this story, although some of them seemed a bit brutal for an audience of young children, showing George badly injured and the dragon spurting blood. Because I love folklore, I know that the legend of St. George and the Dragon is a Christian allegory, although it has some basis in earlier folktales and historical figures. I’ve heard different interpretations of what the dragon is supposed to represent. It can be a symbol of evil, the devil, or sin, and I think I’ve heard that it could represent paganism, which was replaced by Christianity (represented by St. George in the story), although I can’t remember where. In a way, I think this is one of those picture book that might mean more to adults because they would understand more of the symbolism, history, and folklore references in the story. On the other hand, who doesn’t love a story that ends with a gallant knight marrying a beautiful princess?
As another odd piece of literary trivia, the legend of St. George has a connection to another story that I’ve on this blog, Phoebe the Spy. The connection isn’t an obvious one because Phoebe the Spy was set in New York during the American Revolution, which seems far removed from Medieval England. However, on April 23, 1770 (St. George’s Day), the St. George Society (originally called the Sons of St. George) was founded at the Fraunces Tavern in New York, just six years before the story of Phoebe the Spy begins at the same tavern. The St. George Society was and still is a charitable organization that helps immigrants from Britain, using the patron saint of England as its namesake.
Princess Furball retold by Charlotte Huck, illustrated by Anita Lobel, 1989.
There was a princess whose mother died when she was only a baby and whose father never paid much attention to her. In spite of this misfortune, she had a happy childhood because her nurse loved her and let her play with other children. She arranged lessons appropriate to a princess with skilled tutors and let the princess learn how to cook in the royal kitchen.
However, when the princess was grown, the old nurse died, and the princess was very lonely. Her father only cared about the money he could get from the princess’s marriage, and to the princess’s horror, he arranged a marriage to an ogre who promised him fifty wagons of silver in exchange for the princess.
Unable to face the prospect of such a horrible marriage, the princess requests a special gift from her father for her wedding. She asks for three dresses: one golden like the sun, one silver like the moon, and one as sparkling as a the stars. She also asks for a special fur coat made of a thousand different types of fur. At first, the princess doesn’t think the king will be able to meet her demands, but to shock, he sets his people to accomplishing the task and presents her with everything she asked for.
Deciding that there is no other option but to run away, she takes the three dresses with her along with three small golden treasures that belonged to her mother: a ring, a thimble, and a tiny spinning wheel. She also takes along her favorite soup seasonings, which she got from the castle’s cook. Then, she puts on the bulky fur coat and flees into the woods.
In the woods, she is found by the hunting party of a neighboring king. At first, they mistake her for some kind of strange animal. When they find out that she’s a person, they take her back to their castle and put her to work in the kitchen. There, they make her do all the messy cleaning jobs. Nobody knows her real name, so everyone just calls her Furball after her strange, bulky coat made of a thousand patches of fur.
The princess always wears the fur coat as a disguise, but one day, she finds out that the young king of this kingdom is having a ball. She slips away from her kitchen duties and dresses in her dress like the sun. When she is unrecognizable as the kitchen servant, she is able to meet and dance with the king. Being herself is essentially a disguise!
When she slips away from the king and returns to the kitchen, the cook has her make soup for the king, and she uses her special blend of seasonings. When no one is looking, she she also puts her golden ring into the king’s bowl. When the king finds the ring, he asks the cook about it. The cook admits that Furball made the soup, so the king questions her about the ring, but she doesn’t explain.
At the king’s next ball, the princess repeats the same performance, this time wearing the dress like the moon. This time, she slips the golden thimble into the king’s soup when she returns to the kitchen. Again, she doesn’t explain when the king questions her about the thimble.
As in many fairy tales, it’s the third time that’s the charm. When the princess shows up to a ball dressed her her dress like the stars and doesn’t have time to completely change when she gets back to the kitchen that all is revealed, and there’s a happy ending!
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
I remember reading this book when I was a kid in elementary school! I think I read it when I was about 7 years old, when the book was pretty new. I always liked fairy tales. There is a brief explanation at the beginning of the book that the story is a Cinderella variant. This version is very similar to the English folktale Catskin and to the tale of Many Furs or Thousand Furs by the Brothers Grimm.
Like so many little girls, I was fascinated as a kid with the concept of the dresses that resemble the sun, the moon, and the stars. The fur coat made of many animals is a little alarming to me now, but it makes a good disguise in the story. I love the illustrations that show the princess in all of her different dresses and the Furball disguise!
The story doesn’t explain why the princess put her treasures into the soup, but my guess was that she wanted an excuse to see the king again and a way to keep him intrigued about her identity and her relationship to the mysterious princess who keeps showing up to his balls. It’s only after the king decides that he really loves the mysterious princess that it’s safe to reveal her identity.
Cinderella translated and illustrated by Marcia Brown, 1954.
This is a retelling of the classic Cinderella story, translated from the French Perrault version by Marcia Brown, the author and illustrator of many other classic fairy tales and folktales for children.
As in the classic story, Cinderella is a girl with a cruel stepmother and a pair of spoiled stepsisters, who force her to do all of the work of the house and make her wear rags. Her father never stands up for her because he is too attached to his second wife to oppose her.
When it is announced that the king’s son is holding a ball and that the stepsisters are invited, they hurry to get ready, and they make Cinderella help them. Of course, nobody thinks that Cinderella should go to the ball, and the stepsisters laugh and tease her about it.
When they head off to the ball, Cinderella watches them go and cries. Then, her fairy godmother appears and tells her that she is going to help her. The fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a fine coach, mice into horses, and a rat into a coachman. She gives Cinderella a beautiful dress to wear and a lovely pair of glass slippers. However, she warns Cinderella not to stay at the ball past midnight, when her magic spells will end, and everything will become what it was before.
At the ball, Cinderella charms the prince and has a wonderful time. She is even nice to her stepsisters when she encounters them. They don’t recognize her in her new finery. Everyone keeps wondering who the girl who appears to be a beautiful princess could be. Shortly before midnight, she leaves the ball abruptly and returns home before her stepsisters do. She tells her godmother everything that happened and that the prince invited her to a ball to be held on the next night.
The next ball is also wonderful, but Cinderella loses track of the time and runs away suddenly when the clock begins to strike midnight. In her haste to get away, she accidentally leaves one of her glass slippers behind. The prince finds it and decides to use it to find this beautiful, mysterious girl he has already come to love.
Many young ladies try on the shoe, including Cinderella’s stepsisters, hoping that it will fit them. However, it will only fit Cinderella, and only Cinderella has the other slipper in the pair.
This is a Caldecott Medal Book. It’s available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
The story follows the classic Perrault version of the Cinderella story. There are many variations of this fairy tale, but this one is often the best-known. In some versions of the story, Cinderella’s father is also dead, which is why she is left at the mercy of her stepmother and stepsisters, but in this one, he is still alive and is just unconcerned about Cinderella’s treatment. He is never shown in any of the pictures and plays no role in the story.
I enjoyed the illustrations in this book. They’re an unusual style. Objects and people in the pictures are only party defined by pen lines. Many of their edges are more softly defined by color.
The Egyptian Cinderella by Shirley Climo, illustrated by Ruth Heller, 1989.
Rhodopis is a slave girl in Egypt. When she was young, she was abducted from her home in Greece by pirates, who sold her into slavery. Her blonde hair and green eyes make her look very different from the Egyptian servants, and none of them like her.
Most of Rhodopis’s friends are animals, and in the little free time she has, she likes to dance. The elderly man who owns her sees her dancing and has a special pair of rose-red gold shoes made for her so she can wear them while she dances. However, the Egyptian servants are all jealous of her for getting this special gift.
One day, the servants all leave her behind when they go to a special court held by the Pharaoh. While they are gone, a falcon snatches one of Rhodopis’s slippers and flies away. The falcon flies to the court and drops the slipper in the Pharaoh’s lap. The Pharaoh takes this as a sign from Horus that the girl who owns that shoe is destined to be his wife and immediately begins searching for her.
When he finds Rhodopis, the servant girls protest that she is not Egyptian and is only a slave, but the Pharaoh compares her green eyes to the color of the Nile, her light hair to papyrus, and her pink skin to a lotus flower. In his eyes, there could not be any other girl who could represent Egypt, and her slave status doesn’t matter.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
I remember loving this book when I was a kid! I always liked fairy tales and folktales, and I think this was one that was introduced to me by our school librarian, probably around the time it first came out in 1989. For a long time, I was unaware that the same author also wrote other books based on variations of the Cinderella story: The Korean Cinderella, The Persian Cinderella, and The Irish Cinderlad. One of the fascinating things about the story of Cinderella is that variations of the story about a girl (usually, it’s a girl, although there are some variations with a boy) who is abused by her stepmother and stepsisters but who triumphs in the end when she marries a king or a prince, who identifies her as the girl he loves by a lost shoe, have appeared in cultures around the world. The classic one that most of us know is the French version by Perrault, but there are other versions of the story that are older.
There is an author’s note in the back of the book that explains that this Egyptian version of the Cinderella story is one of the oldest known Cinderella stories. The Roman historian Strabo recorded the story in the first century BC. The story is legend, but according to the author, Rhodopis was a real slave girl who married the Pharaoh Amasis in the sixth century BC (although accounts of her vary, and it can be difficult to separate history from legend).
Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep by Gail Carson Levine, 1999.
This story is a retelling of the classic fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty. It’s part of a series of other retellings and re-imaginings of classic fairy tales called The Princess Tales.
When Princess Sonora was born, her parents invited the usual fairies to give her gifts. They do this because it can be dangerous to anger fairies, although fairies’ gifts are a risky proposition at the best of times. Unfortunately, there are two complications with the fairies who give Princess Sonora gifts. First, one of the fairies decides to top a previous fairy’s gift of intelligence by making Princess Sonora ten times as intelligent as any other human on earth. As a result, Princess Sonora is an unnaturally intelligent baby who begins to talk almost immediately and is smart enough to understand the second problem that arises.
Her parents neglected to invite a particular fairy because they’d heard a rumor that she was dead. Of course, the fairy shows up anyway, angry at the lack of invitation, and immediately curses Princess Sonora. As in the original Sleeping Beauty story, the curse is that, someday, Princess Sonora will prick her finger and die. Also, as in the original story, the last fairy who hadn’t yet given a gift uses her gift to soften the curse so that, instead of dying, Princess Sonora and everyone else in and around her castle will fall asleep for 100 years. She can’t completely remove another fairy’s spell because that might provoke a fairy war, but this change to the curse gives the family hope. She promises that Princess Sonora will meet an eligible prince when she wakes up. Princess Sonora, being an unnaturally intelligent baby who can talk, also gives her own feedback and suggestions on the situation, to her parents’ amazement. Her parents decide to try to prevent the curse from coming true by hiding anything that can prick Princess Sonora, but baby Princess Sonora has already realized that this will be impossible. She knows that the curse will come true someday, and as she lies in her cradle, she begins to make plans to prick herself on purpose, someday when she can choose just the right moment.
Being smart is generally a good thing, but Princess Sonora’s unnatural intelligence makes her a very peculiar girl in a number of ways. For one thing, she loves books and is always reading, even as a baby. She grows up to be a very studious girl. That’s not so bad, but Princess Sonora carries it to extremes. She also refuses to sleep. It’s partly because she knows that, at some point, she’s going to spend 100 years sleeping, so there’s no point in wasting more time asleep. She’s also afraid of sleep because she doesn’t know where her mind will go when she sleeps, and with her massive intelligence, she loves her mind and doesn’t want it to go away. Instead of sleeping, she just reads all night or thinks about things. Because of her intelligence, curiosity, and constant reading, Princess Sonora knows the answers to many questions, but people often find it irritating because they don’t want to hear her long explanations or all the ways she knows for people to do their jobs better. People start saying to each other, “Princess Sonora knows, but don’t ask her.” Princess Sonora wishes that other people would be more interested in what she has to say, but she knows better than to force the issue.
When Princess Sonora turns 14 years old, her parents begin looking for a prince she can marry, assuming that she doesn’t prick herself and fall asleep for 100 years first. They choose Prince Melvin, from a large and wealthy kingdom nearby. It seems like a smart match, but Princess Sonora knows it isn’t a good one. Prince Melvin has also received gifts from the fairies, and while they include positive qualities, like honesty and bravery, they don’t include intelligence. Prince Melvin isn’t very smart and wouldn’t appreciate any of the things Sonora knows or has to say. He would marry her anyway because he’s Honest and Traditional, but Sonora knows that she wouldn’t be happy. When she meets him, he’s very dull. The fairies made him a Man of Action, not of thought. He’s decided that thinking gets in the way, so he has few ideas and certainly no interesting ones. Sonora begins to think that the right time for pricking her finger might be coming soon. Pricking her finger doesn’t quite go as she had planned, but the curse works.
When Princess Sonora and everyone in the castle is put to sleep for 100 years, they are half-forgotten. Princess Sonora becomes a kind of legend, and the saying “Princess Sonora knows, but don’t ask her” becomes a common saying when someone doesn’t know the answer to something, with few people knowing who Sonora really is or why you’re not supposed to ask her what she knows. That is, until a prince with curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, someone who really needs Sonora’s knowledge to solve a problem, seeks her out for the answers he really needs. When Sonora wakes, she finally meets a prince needs a princess like her and is truly happy to hear what she has to say!
My Reaction
I liked this story when I first read it as part of a collection of other stories in the same series. Gail Carson Levine, who is also the author of Ella Enchanted, often writes stories themed on fairy tales but with her own twists. Princess Sonora’s extreme intelligence and fear of sleep weren’t part of the original fairy tale, although they fit this story nicely. I found the scene with the fairies giving Sonora gifts a little disturbing. When one of the fairies gives her the gift of beauty, the baby physically changes, and it is described as being painful. It is a theme in other stories by Gail Carson Levine that the magical gifts fairies give often have unfortunate side effects. Some of them really turn out almost like curses, but in this case, it turns out to be just what Sonora really needs and leads her to the person who really needs her. Even after people stop getting gifts from fairies when they’re babies, they still have quirks, and Sonora’s quirks fit with Prince Christopher’s quirk for curiosity!
A long time ago, a king is irritated with his queen because they have no children. The queen tells him to be patient, and she eventually gives him a daughter. The king is very happy, but he makes a critical mistake. He forgets to invite his own sister to his daughter’s christening. It would be embarrassing for anybody to forget to invite a family member to an important event, but it’s a serious problem in his case because his sister is a wicked witch. She has a nasty temper and is vindictive. So, she decides to show up for the christening anyway and get her revenge by putting a spell on the baby princess. From that moment on, the baby is weightless, no longer bound by gravity.
It doesn’t take the little princess’s parents long to realize who has caused this strange malady in their child. It’s not all bad. Her nurses find her very easy to carry around, and people in the palace have fun playing ball with the princess as the ball, and the little princess herself seems to find all of this delightful. However, there is always the fear that she could blow away by accident, which does happen once, when she is blown out of a window and into the garden. Her parents continually worry about her future. At the queen’s urging, the king attempts to go to his sister and apologize about forgetting her invitation to the christening and ask her to lift the spell on the princess, but his sister denies all knowledge of the spell. The king knows she’s lying, but as long as she continues to deny it, there isn’t much he can do.
The problem goes much deeper than the princess having difficultly keeping her feet on the ground literally. She also has difficulty keeping her feet on the ground mentally. Her lack of gravity extends to an inability to see the “gravity” or seriousness in any situation. She laughs all the time, at everything, even when nothing is funny, although there is no real depth of feeling to her laughter. Even though she laughs all the time, she never smiles, leaving it open to question whether she ever really feels happiness or any emotion at all. She certainly doesn’t understand genuinely serious or catastrophic situations or other people’s emotions. When her mother cries, the princess just thinks that she’s making funny faces and odd sounds because she can’t seem to understand what crying means or the emotion behind it.
When the princess gets older, her parents talk to her about her condition, but the princess refuses to take it seriously. They try to ask her about what she feels. The princess says that she doesn’t feel anything, except that she sometimes feels like she’s the only one who has any sense, and then, she bursts into a wild, inappropriate fit of laughter. When they ask her if there’s anything she wants in life, all she can think of is to have someone tie a string to her and fly her like a kite, and then, she bursts into laughter again.
Since it’s useless trying to get through to the princess, the king and queen try consulting others, but nobody can agree on a solution. They consider metaphysics and philosophy. They recommend education and bloodletting. Her parents wonder if she would acquire some gravity if she fell in love, but the princess can’t seem to fall into anything … until the day she falls into the lake.
There is only one thing that the princess seems to love at all, and that’s the lake near the castle. When they take the princess out in a boat one day, she falls into the lake, and when she is in the water, she has gravity. She loves the water and loves swimming. She seems to have a better temperament when she is in the water, and she behaves better after a swim. Since water seems to affect the princess, they begin to consider that the cure to her problem might be to make her cry – a way of producing water that requires a grave emotion. However, nothing seems to make the princess cry. She is too flighty. (This book is full of puns related to gravity and flying, and they’re all given in a grave, direct manner.)
Then, one day, a prince tries to rescue the princess from the lake because he thinks she’s about to drown. When he pulls her from the water, she loses her gravity, and she angrily tells him to put her back in the lake. Unsure of how to do it when she’s weightless, the prince grabs hold of her and jumps into the lake with her. The princess is surprised and delighted because she has never truly fallen before. Now, she has fallen in with the prince … maybe in more ways than one.
However, even though the princess is starting to feel something for the prince, she has trouble understanding what she feels, not having felt much of anything for most of her life. When the lake suddenly begins drying up, the princess’s condition starts getting worse. The prince, who has truly begun to care about the princess, is willing to sacrifice himself to save the lake and the princess. It is only when the princess is confronted with the full reality of the prince’s sacrifice on her behalf that she is able to fully feel something and break free of her curse.
This book is now in the public domain, and you can read it online in your browser at Lit2Go. It is also accompanied by audio readings of each of the chapters.
My Reaction
Like other Victorian era children’s stories, there is a moral to this one, but it’s phrased in a unique and fun way. I remember liking this story the first time I read it as a kid, but I forgot about all of the puns involving “gravity”, which can refer to the force that makes things fall to earth or a state of serious emotion. The princess in the story lacks both, so she is very literally “flighty” and “can’t keep her feet on the ground.” Both of those terms are related to the idea that serious people have more emotional gravity, and unserious people lack it. For most of the book, the princess is an unfeeling air-head. I also missed the mention that the king doesn’t like puns, which may tacitly explain why his sister chose to make her curse in the form of a pun, knowing that her brother wouldn’t understand it.
The book notes that real happiness requires some emotional gravity because the person has to have enough emotional depth to understand their real emotional state and react appropriately to their emotions. That’s why the book describes the princess as never seeming happy, even when she laughs insanely at everything. She has no emotional depth or understanding. She doesn’t feel very much emotionally, and she has trouble understanding even her own limited emotional range. People often have trouble telling the difference between her laughing and screaming. Either way, it’s just a lot of loud noise with no real feeling behind it, and it’s pretty disturbing. It’s only when confronted with the apparent loss of the man she loves that the princess is able to feel a definite emotion. Fortunately, it all ends happily for our prince and princess. At the last minute, she decides to sacrifice her lake to save him, and finally, cries for the first time in her life, and that breaks her spell.
People don’t like to feel negative emotions, and some will use all kinds of defense methods to avoid what they’re feeling, but negative emotions (within reason, not taken to excess) are important to emotional health. People need to feel their full emotional range, and negative emotions often act as safety features in our lives. They tell us when we’re in an unsafe or unhealthy situation or when we’ve done something wrong, and they motivate us to do whatever is necessary to fix the situation. The princess’s habitual reaction to anything and everything is crazed and unfeeling laughter, but that’s not what she needs. She needs real feeling and honest tears to restore both her physical and emotional gravity. The princess, staring at the prince as he is about to die is literally staring death in the face and feeling the “gravity” of it. Contemplating the impending death of the prince and understanding for once the seriousness and finality of it, the princess experiences sadness and loss, and through that, she comes to understand love and sacrifice. Only when she has been through all of that is the princess truly able to be happy with her prince and his recovery. The princess has a difficult time adjusting to her new gravity, in more ways than one. She has to learn to walk for the first time because she always floated easily through life before, and sometimes, she falls down and hurts herself. She sometimes complains about it, but it’s still worth it because she has gained the ability to fully feel and to love and be loved.
During the story, none of the main characters actually have names. They are only referred to by their titles: king, queen, princess, and prince. Their names aren’t as important as their roles in the story.
There is a more modern story called Princess Hyacinth: The Surprising Tale of a Girl Who Floated from 2009 that uses the concept of a princess who is unaffected by gravity, but in a different way. It’s a picture book, and in that story, the princess isn’t cured of her lack of gravity. Instead, she learns how to make the most of it.
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 