Once upon a time there was an enchanting fairytale about a prince who was looking for a real princess to be his bride. The only way to tell whether the many princesses who applied for the post were really royal, legend had it, was to see if they would be able to feel a tiny little pea through dozens of luxurious mattresses as they slept. Only the princess who emerged the next morning complaining of the extreme discomfort in which she had passed the night, could possibly be good enough to be the prince's bride . . . All well and enchanting, but has anyone stopped to think about how all this might have felt for the pea in question? No. So here, for the first time, straight from the pea, is the truth about this much-loved, oft-repeated fairytale.
Mini Grey was given her name after being born in a Mini in a car park in Newport, Wales. She studied for an MA in Sequential Illustration at Brighton under the tutelage of John Vernon Lord. Mini also worked as a primary school teacher in Oxford, where she now lives. Her books include Egg Drop, The Pea and the Princess (shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal), Biscuit Bear (winner of the Nestle Children's Book Prize Gold Award), Traction Man is Here (winner of the Boston Horn Book Award and shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal), The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon (winner of the Nestle Children's Book Prize Bronze Award and winner of the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal), and Traction Man meets Turbodog. Mini Grey is one of the Big Picture's ten Best New Illustrators.
Title: The Pea and the Princess
Author: Mini Grey
ISBN: 9780099432333
Binding:
Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
Publication Date: 2004-04-01
Number of Pages: 32
Weight: 0.1815 kg
This zany retelling with Pea as hero and narrator - plus a clever twist at the end - is also captivatingly illustrated . . . A fresh, original picture book * The Bookseller *
This wittily inventive book gives the fairy-tale a whole new perspective . . . Mini Grey is a young author-illustrator of impressive originality * Independent *
Grey's idiosyncratic illustrations provide lots of mileage to play spot the pea as they turn the pages * Junior *
Beautifully illustrated by the author, this is an original take on an old story and one which will delight young minds * South Wales Argus *
