Little Princess Tony Ross

HAHAHA to the 'Little Princess' books that always make us laugh.

We stumbled upon this series when we were watching BBC's channel 5 programs and Man! what a find! Ever since we have been squealing in delight on discovering  these books  in libraries or book shops here in Bangalore!

Tony Ross is the author/illustrator and here is a lovely write up about his other work (also illustrated the Horrid Henry series )

This adoringly impish princess is the main character of this book series; surrounded by grown ups of the royal household such as her parents- the king and queen, little brother, admiral, cook, nanny, prime - minister, and the doctor . Lovely illustrations;crazy illustrations- Little Princess wearing a saucepan on her head, the nose digger cook, a doctor with chicken pox , a delightful little girl with a crown---what's not to love and laugh!

Also, every 'Little Princess' story has some endearing thought attached. 

Take this book "I want to be" as an example. The cover has a lipstick smeared face and the story begins with her announcement of  " the time has come to grow up". The princess goes around asking "what is the best way to be?"

 "Kind like your father", suggests her mother; "Loving, like your mother", suggests her father; "Clean", says the cook standing in a filthy kitchen as he sticks a finger in his nose ; the prime minister, worried about his last piece of a puzzle says ``be clever''; and the doctor--covered with pox--advises her to "be healthy". Finally confused with all these replies she goes to her nanny who lovingly lifts her up in her arms and instructs her to " Be yourself"

At the end sitting on her potty she declares "I want to be tall" and in comes her little brother saying " You are already tall"!

Such giggles.

Dongdong and His Kitten

I was rummaging around in my nephews's old book shelf and surprise, surprise-- found a Chinese picture book (written  in English)!

Now that was a first! Not only it has a great story line but has some nice art work - so refreshing and different from the Western/ Indian world of picture books I am used to. I took a picture of one of its pages below for you to take a look.





It is published by Dolphin Books; the story is by Xu Xinghua; and illustrations by Yuan Xiaomin.

This is how the story goes: 

Dongdong breaks a vase by mistake and blames it on  Kitty, his kitten. When his mother decides to send Kitty away and starts putting her in the basket, Dongdong admits to having broken the vase. His mom ( predictably ) tells him not to tell lies and lets Kitty out.

Now here is the nice bit as the story continues:

Kitty on another day breaks a bowl while stealing a fish from the kitchen and Dongdong doesn't know what to do. He worries that mom will this time really send Kitty off so he takes on the blame. Mom looks at him as if to ask him what  to do. He begs her not to send Kitty away and his mom says," That depends on whether you 're going to behave yourself now". Dongdong admonishes Kitty and says, "Don't steal any more fish". The story ends with Mama gently stroking Dongdong and reiterating: "Never tell a lie, there's a good boy."

It is a  great preschooler's book about behaviour without being preachy. To me this story speaks about an important theme-- children lie because they are afraid of how we will react as parents/adults. I wish I can get hold of the other books listed in the Dongdong series! Any idea , how?