Samara Nichols
Period 4
Nov. 30
An Excellent Children’s Book Review
One of my favorite books growing up was The Princess and The Pizza by Mary
Jane and Herm Auch. This story is about the smart mouthed princess Paulina, whose
father gave up the throne to become a common woodcarver. Paulina wants more than
anything to get back to her old ways of life. One day an announcement is made that a
queen from another kingdom is looking for a princess to marry her son. Paulina decides
this is her chance, and decides to enter in the competition along with eleven other
princesses.
Queen Zelda had created a series of tests to see which princess was most fit for
her son, Prince Drupert. These tests included sleeping (or in this case not sleeping) on
sixteen mattresses stacked on top of a pea, trying on a pair of glass slippers, and creating
the best feast. Paulina easily completes the first two tests, but struggles with the third.
The only ingredients she has to cook with are yeast, water, overripe tomatoes, and some
stale cheese. She no longer wants to participate if the competition is unfair, but is
threatened with beheading by Queen Zelda if she doesn’t win. She quickly throws
together something from the ingredients she was given. She mixed the yeast and water, to
make dough and smeared the tomatoes on for color. She then crumbled the cheese on
hoping that would help with the tasted, and put her creation in the fire.
Will Paulina win the competition, or be beheaded? Will she be able to finally be able to
get back to her old princess ways a by marrying Prince Drupert? You will have to read
the story to find out!
One of my favorite things about this story is the references it makes to other
fairytales. The first test is to sleep on sixteen mattresses stacked on top of a pea. This test
is also used in the story The Princess and The Pea. In that story a queen is also trying to
decide if a girl is a true princess, and fit to marry her son. The second test is to try on
glass slippers. In Cinderella the prince is able to find his true love, because only her foot
would fit in the glass slipper. Two of the other princesses competing also sound very
familiar. One has freakishly long hair, which Paulina wonders if she could borrow to
climb out the window to escape being beheaded. That sounds quite a bit like one of my
favorite princesses, Rapunzel. The other princess has seven little men following her
around, and helping her with the test. I guess Snow White and Prince Charming broke up.
The last reference I found made to other fairytales was when Paulina was trying to find
other tests she could do instead of cooking the feast. She asked Queen Zelda “ How about
I try to spin straw into gold? Or maybe I could guess a weird little man’s name?” I’m
pretty sure she was referencing to the fairytale, Rumplistiltskin.
This book is also very fun to look at. The pictures are extremely colorful and
whimsical. Features are exaggerated giving everyone an almost comical appearance. One
of my favorite pictures is of all the princesses. I use to love looking at all their different
styles, and ranking them based on their looks. The background is always very muted, or
even just black white. This draws your attention to the characters, and objects in the
illustrations.
I love this book. I find it very entertaining and witty. The illustrations are well
done and will keep little kids attention. This book also has a good story line, along with
humorous and cute comments. I think the lessons being taught are going after what you
want, being independent, and making the best of a bad situation. This is a great children’s
book, and is entertaining for children (or adults) of all ages.