The Real Princess: A Mathemagical Tale

A queen devises a way, with the help of her nine golden peas, to tell whether each of the girls her three sons hope to marry is a true princess.

Grade 1–4—Three princes, Primo, Secundo, and Terzo, are in need of brides, but only the oldest must find a real princess—one fit to be the next queen. When two bedraggled young women arrive during storms, Secundo and Terzo become enamored of them, and marry them even though they are not quite real—they do not feel the gold peas that the queen has placed under many mattresses. Finally a real princess's sleep is disturbed by the presence of a solitary pea. The king and queen have parted with all of their gold, but that solitary pea provides them with a fresh source of income. The story, referred to as a traditional tale rather than attributed to Hans Christian Andersen, is liberally laced with numbers, all highlighted by a different font. Children can count the windows in the castle, add up the number of servants, determine how much gold is remaining, and perform other tasks suggested at the back of the book. The text flows nicely and the illustrations, done in acrylics and collaged papers, are intricately detailed and will invite children to pore over them repeatedly. A nice twist on the original with opportunities for readers to interact with the text.—Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ
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In addition to the requisite 3 sons, the king and queen have 1 butler, 2 footmen, 3 maids, 4 horses, 5 grooms, 6 dogs, 7 gardeners, 8 chimney sweeps, 9 cooks, and 10 soldiers. Not to mention the 10 golden peas that the queen slips under a stack of mattresses to test possible princesses when they come to stay the night. The two younger princes happily marry not-quite-royal maidens, but what will happen when Prince Primo brings the lovely Geometria home to the castle? Neither the mathematical elements grafted onto the story nor the feature on the last page (TEST YOUR COUNTING SKILLS! . . . How many servants live in the castle?) add much of real value to the traditional tale, The Princess and the Pea. But the playful tone of both the vivid telling and the vivacious illustrations makes this picture book such a buoyant version of the story that not even the weight of all those extras can sink it. Grades K-2. --Carolyn Phelan