Princess Smartypants

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It is a story that allows pupils to generate their own question of what they want to know so further develops good discussion. The book can also be used as a starting point for discussions around gender roles at a level Year 1 students can engage with. Also with the illustrations there was not cultural diversity with the suitors that came to see Princess Smartypants.

It’s impossible to view this scene as humbling without also acknowledging at some level that female undergarments are inherently funny and shameful. Can you find out about important kings, queens, princes and princesses from different periods in history? This [narrative] isn’t just saying that women don’t have to marry, it’s saying that women can humiliate men, force them to work, then don’t marry them.

He allowed me to read it to him one time, because there were animals in it, but since it had a plot and human characters, it was not a favorite of his. Oh, how my mother - a woman whose favorite shirt said If they can send one man to the moon, why not all of them? We believe that books are a great way to raise awareness and improve understanding of different experiences. and the overall disrespectful, non-familial attitudes to the man-hating, lying, deal breaking princess this book was feminist rubbish from top to bottom.

I may be biased here: I'm married, am strong and capable of independent thought, but I still choose to be known as a Ms. Several of her other books similarly divide opinion, including Hair in Funny Places, which deals with puberty, and Mummy Laid an Egg, a book about the facts of life that features graphic illustrations of various adventurous sexual positions. All together the book was a fun story and I like how the book was throughout colorful and had lots of details in the drawings. It is worth noting that this book was written in 1986; 25 years later Australia had a female prime minister who was castigated for being “deliberately barren”, and a further five years down the track the USA has a president who says of women “grab them by the pussy”.

What is most fascinating – though not surprising – is the way that much of Babette Cole’s work divides opinion. In this feminist reworking of a classic fairy-tale theme, Princess Smartypants defies her parents' wishes, outwits her suitors, and remains a content and single young lady. However, back in the mid 1980s when Princess Smartypants was published, the world was seeing feminist inversions of classic tales for the first time. This hilarious picture book has a subversive protagonist and a strong message about choosing your own destiny. She has a little-girl English voice, sometimes little-girl clothes, lives on a boat for half the year and is altogether entertaining and eccentric.