Author: Robert N. Munsch
Illustrator: Micheal Martchenko
Annick Press (1992)
Peggy Orenstein who is famous for her classic book School Girls, wrote a book called Cinderella Ate My Daughter:Dispatches From the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture. I found this book hilarious, interesting, and informative. As a famous feminist, the author is happily keeping her child away from the girlie-girl culture, but her daughter goes there anyway. She explains many things like how pink came to be the "girl" color (it used to be light blue) and how the marketers took off on the princess fantasy to make millions of dollars.
The thing that has really stuck with me is her idea that there is nothing wrong at all with our children playing princess, but limiting their play to only one type of fantasy is, well, limiting. My daughter can play princess all she wants, but I do want her to play builder, and vet, and train conductor, and butterfly too.
By the way, she has a super fantastic fun book list on her website. Here's the link: http://peggyorenstein.com/resources.html (and really her whole website is great).
On to the book of the day--The Paper Bag Princess! This is a classic feminist tale. It couldn't be less subtle. But Mirette totally adores this book. She likes seeing the dragon's fiery breath and asks to read it again and again. Her eyes lit up when I took it along on a car trip the other day. Spoiler alert: After saving the Prince, the prince rudely tells Elizabeth (the heroine) that she should clean herself up and change out of her paper bag before taking him away from the dragon. Elizabeth says that he is a bum (in the English version it was Toad) and decides not to marry him, skipping off happily by herself.
Interestingly, the book is written and illustrated by men.
Robert Munsch is quite a guy. I have to admit I started crying when I read his bio. http://robertmunsch.com/whats-new. He does speaking engagements at schools for free and sometimes just shows up unannounced (Can you imagine). He prefers to stay with families and many of his stories are based on children he's met (Princess Elizabeth was based on a girl at his preschool who would throw her jacket on the ground like a princess). He develops his stories from telling them first (in fact, that's how he got discovered). He has a a wild and manic way of spinning a yarn and sounds like quite a character. Robert battles addiction and mental illness. He also writes poems.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/conditions/how-robert-munsch-grabbed-a-lifeline/article4268136/
Here's a great bio on the illustrator Mark Martchenko: http://www.annickpress.com/authors/martchenko.asp?author=251&author2=380
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