Princess Tales

Princess Tales:
In Which Alkelda the Gleeful and My Kid Basically Write My Blog Post For Me

Although I've waxed lyrical in the past about the joys of connecting with other bloggers, the truth is that in recent months I've been a pretty pathetically inactive member of the children's literature blogging community. However, now that these Scholastic blogs have blogrolls (look over to the right!) I've been inspired anew to keep up with of my favorite kidlit bloggers. And lo! I have been rewarded with blogging inspiration.

Over at Saints and Spinners, Alkelda the Gleeful recently interviewed her young daughter about princesses and invited her readers to do the same. Since my 7-year-old daughter is a longtime princess fan, and since princesses and princess books tend to be topics of consuming interest to girls around the ages of 4 to 7, I was especially happy to take Alkelda up on it. And since answering these questions offered my kid the chance to delay bedtime, she was in turn happy to participate. Here are the results:

What do you like about princesses?

They're pretty, they're kind, warm-hearted when others are not, and their outfits are pretty, and they're special.

What do princesses do?

Be royal, have fun, go out in the gardens, go to balls. They live happily ever after!

When you pretend to be a princess, what do you like to do?

Pretend I have servants, pretend that I go to big fancy ballrooms, and play music or dance to a lively tune, which is usually one of my kids' fun CDs: mostly Rick Around the Rock, Scat Like That, or Car Tunes. 

What do princesses do that is good?

They help others! They take risks just for love. They don't care that much about money.

What are some princess stories that you like?

[Ed. note: she started paging through a fairy tale collection for reference partway through answering this question; several of the stories she lists are retold there, but most of the versions I've linked to all are stand-alone picture books.]

I like Cinderella—a certain one, where she's black and she wears a pink dress and the fairy godmother comes with her and wears a red dress [She meant Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella, by Robert D. San Souci]. Sleeping Beauty—not the Disney one—The Princesses Have a Ball, The Courageous Princess, Princess Baby, The Paper Princess, The Paper Bag Princess. The Princess and the Pea, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Rapunzel, and Snow White. And The Goose Girl. Rumplestiltskin. Oh yeah, I like The Frog Prince!

Which one is your favorite out of those? (You can pick two if you like.)

The Goose Girl (from Five-Minute Fairy Tales) and The Princesses Have a Ball [Ed. note: I like this one too! It's a retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" with a fun and playful athletic slant—I think that's all I can say without spoiling the ending too badly.]

Anything else you want to say about princesses?

They don't always have to look nice to be happy. They can look however and still be happy.

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If you conduct any princess-related interviews of your own, be sure to let Alkelda know! I'd love to hear about it, too.

April 6, 2008

Comments

[Lise]

For anyone wondering about the musical selections above, they are:

Rick Scott - Rick Around the Rock
http://www.rickscott.ca/discdetail/rickaround.htm

Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer - Scat Like That
http://www.cathymarcy.com/CDXtras.html

Sugar Beats - Car Tunes
http://www.amazon.com/Car-Tunes-Sugar-Beats/dp/B00004UAQE

[pablo]

testing

[your neighborhood librarian]

This is a great idea! I'm seriously considering rejiggering it into a superhero quiz for my boys. And I love that princesses are "warm-hearted".

[your neighborhood librarian]

This is a great idea! I'm seriously considering rejiggering it into a superhero quiz for my boys. And I love that princesses are "warm-hearted".