You Won't Sleep Through This

Sleeping Handsome and the Princess Engineer (Fairy Tales Today) - Kay Woodward, Jo de Ruiter Sleeping Ugly - Jane Yolen, Diane Stanley

Sleeping Handsome and the Princess Engineer is a cute picture book for the K-2 set that tries to hit all the requisite modern points. Prince Handsome is quickly dispatched into slumber by the curse set by a jealous wizard, and so Princess Engineer comes to the rescue. About the only engineering required is that the princess brings along a digging machine, and this is a disappointment. It would have been fun to have someone with a name like Princess Engineer make some fancy machines to try to get Prince Handsome out of his predicament, but instead, the more predictable ending occurs. Gender role conscious parents will probably like this one, but developing the engineer theme (and the prince’s appreciation for his rescuer’s smarts) would have made this book a bigger hit with me. Readers who enjoy this would also like Jane Yolen's Sleeping Ugly, another twist on the same tale.