Mireille Levert

The illustrations are fantastic, which is why I picked it up to read; I was flipping through looking for damage and there was just so much color, it caught my eye. The story, however, is surprisingly dumb, and by that I mean I was surprised by the introduction of a prince in a story that seemed to be going a totally different direction. A prince, really? That princess looks like she's ten years old! And no one in the entire kingdom thought of having the princess learn how to do something? Painting, knitting, playing the horn, growing wheat - there was only one prince in the entire world who could come up with such ideas?? Everyone else is just useless, apparently, including the princess and her parents, which bodes super well for the kingdom they're all ruling. Honestly. Oh, and then they get married, just to cap things off. Yes, it was "in the years that followed," but it would have to be an awful lot of years for me to feel okay about it, and how are you going to convey that in a picture book? I assumed I was going to like this right from the beginning, but boy did it get derailed along the middle.… (mere)