CEO princesses

If you've read this previous post about princess stories, you'll know I'm not a big fan of the sickly sweet, one-dimensional, sit in a castle and look pretty kind of princess. But if you venture past your part of the forest surrounding the castle and push past the brambles and thorns, you'll find there are many fabulous princess stories to be found.

This one came from the library - "Princesses are not quitters!" by Kate Lum, illustrated by Sue Hellard. Well, I had to read it after glancing at the title!

This is the story of three bored princesses, Princess Allie, Princess Mellie and Princess Libby, who decide that "Servants have all the fun!"

"Now, Mrs Blue," said Allie to the housekeeper, "today we princesses are going to be servants. From now until midnight, we want to be treated just like servants."

This is what they do:

"They had to SWEEP the floors and
WHITEWASH the walls and
DUST the ceiling free of webs and
POLISH the windows and
SCRUB the pots and then go outside and
SWEEP the path and WEED the garden and
SCRUB the fountain and
FEED the hens and
PICK the cabbages for lunch and ....

As you can imagine, the princesses are very tired. But they didn't want anyone to say that princesses are quitters so they kept on working.

My favourite illustration is the kitchen page. Compare the servants' cupboard on the left to the cupboard for the princesses on the right!

The moral of the story? You guessed it - the princesses feel proud of their efforts despite their aching bodies.

Princess Allie declared: "There will now be new rules for servants in this land. Things cannot go on as they are!"

The servants now must sleep in, rest, sit in the garden for an hour and eat whenever they're hungry.

Imagine an organisation where the three bosses are willing to do the work of the lowest paid employee, write a manifesto to ensure all employees have holidays, start work at 9am and rest whenever they need!

Maybe every small girl with either corporate or regal aspirations should read this book - wouldn't you like Princess Allie, Mellie or Libby as your CEO?

The Princess and the Pea

I’m not really sure what I think about princesses. When Annalise began her interest in girls with crowns and long flowing dresses, I panicked. What sort of role model were princesses to the modern three-year-old? What exactly did they represent? What would they inspire in her? What characteristics would she try to imitate?

I decided that it was up to me to provide good, inspiring, courageous, kind-of-out-there princess examples. We started with the princess from “The Princess and the Pea” story. For Christmas last year, I gave Annalise three different versions of the story, as well as a small princess figure and a wooden bed with ten mini quilts. I sewed the quilts with leftover fabric scraps and bought the princess and bed from the lovely toyshop Honeybee Toys. And, of course, we needed a pea – not a real one, just a felt one!

“The Princess and the Pea” by Rachel Isadora is the stock standard version, so that Annalise would know the original story. The illustrations, made with oil paints, printed paper and palette paper, are vibrant and vivid, and I love the African princesses. The story also uses some African words, which are defined at the back of the book. Thanks to Honeybee Toys for finding that book for me.

“The Princess and the Packet of Frozen Peas” by Tony Wilson is about a prince called Henrik who wants to find a princess to marry.

She didn’t have to be beautiful or sensitive. She just had to like hockey and camping and have a nice smile.

Prince Henrik’s test involves not a canopy bed with 20 mattresses and one pea, but a thin camping mattress, an old sleeping bag and a whole packet of frozen peas. You’ve got to love a down-to-earth, practical prince!

“The Princess and the Pea” by Lauren Child is an amazing piece of artwork. Lauren painted cornflake packets for the paneled rooms and set up the paper-dressed characters inside with tweezers, before Polly Borland, the photographer, took the photos. The language used is just as wonderful –

“You see,” said the king, “a real princess is not only mesmerisingly beautiful and fascinatingly interesting but, most important of all –"
“She has manners,” said the queen.
“No one should ever travel without them,” said the king.
“No, never, never go anywhere without your manners,” agreed the queen, taking her elbows off the table.

And now I am ready for Annalise to embrace her inner princess – she can be as mesmerisingly beautiful and fascinatingly interesting as she likes – as long as she remembers her manners!