Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol. Nicely, this fairy-tale heroine isn’t in need of saving-there’s no stepmother and no forced labor, though she does clean her own home.įor those kids who find nasty sisters, cleaning, and losing a shoe to be too tame, this is a daredevil alternative. West’s brightly colored vignette and double-page-spread illustrations are full of funny details, especially the scenes in the zoo. But of course, the prince can’t do things the easy way he will search for “Stickerella” blindfolded, which makes for lots of humorous mishaps and near misses.

But at the stroke of bedtime, she is gone, leaving behind only her pogo stick, which the prince calls a “stick-thingy.” The girl who can make the right sound with the stick-ZING-BOING!-will be the honored guest at the prince’s birthday party. At the royal ice cream social, he meets a blonde who can keep up with his crazy antics-playing “Für Elise” with her toes while doing a backbend while the prince roller-blades across the top of the piano. A daredevil prince meets his perfect Cinderella, and they begin a “most adventurous friendship.”īathing in the crocodile-filled moat and toasting marshmallows by dragon’s breath are par for the course for Prince Dashing.

Willow the Armadillo by Marilou Reeder