Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

In this familiar Hans Christian Andersen tale, a prince seeks a true princess with whom to share his kingdom; after he rejects a sequence of hopefuls, a promising candidate arrives, claiming princesshood. The queen decides to put her to the famous pea test; the girl passes with flying colors; she and the prince are wed and live happily ever after. Isadora's adaptation is simplified, with the true princess the first to undergo the mattress test, and the story moves rather hastily from her trial to her success. The African setting for the tale brings a new slant, though, and Isadora's mixed-media illustrations are vivid and dramatic. Incorporating both bits of paper painted by her own hand and textured scraps of printed paper, the art provides rich textures and lively variety. Skin tones are nuanced shades of brown oil paints while fabrics (both garments and the mattresses) are a wild assortment of preprinted patterns, from stripes and leopard spots to flowers and geographic forms. This version doesn't really bring much to the story itself, but there is lots to look at in each spread, and young listeners will definitely want a chance to pore over the compositions after hearing the tale.