(Primary) It may seem at times that fractured fairy tales are starting to outnumber editions of the original stories, but this skewed ""Princess and the Pea"" delivers an entertaining spin and a great deal of visual wit. As you would expect, there's a prince, his mother the queen, a whole lot of mattresses, and a pea...who narrates the story. There are also lots of princesses, including a double-page spread of pictures of princesses the prince has visited, each labeled with the reason she was rejected: ""too scruffy"" (shown with a mop, a pumpkin, and a glass slipper), ""too pink"" (a Barbie-as-Rapunzel type), and so on. Other princesses come and lie on the tall stack of mattresses the queen sets on top of the pea, but each politely says, ""WHAT a comfortable bed!"" the next morning. Meanwhile, outside the window, a young woman in overalls carries out all sorts of work -- sawing a tree branch, chopping wood, and pushing a wheelbarrow. When she arrives at the door during a rainstorm, the queen mistakes her for a princess and bundles her off to bed. The pea, recognizing her as its gardener, whispers in her ear all night so that she's kept awake and tells the queen about her uncomfortable night. Grey's paintings are filled with rich color and little jokes, with vegetable and fruit motifs throughout the book. In a particularly funny twist, the pea has tiny eyes, while the queen has eyes that look like peas, as well as a pea-decorated headscarf behind her crown, and pea jewelry. The endpapers create a beginning and end, opening with a newly planted royal garden and closing with the prince and his bride happily harvesting an abundant crop. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

PreS-Gr 3-The "real story" of the Princess and the Pea is finally told from the pea's point of view. It begins its story in the palace garden, nestled in a pod with its brothers and sisters. It just knew it was destined for greatness and was not surprised when it was picked from the pile of shelled peas and taken to the queen. The prince has just returned home after a year of fruitless searching for a bride and the queen is not happy. She places an ad in the newspaper for REAL princesses and spends months testing young women with the pea-under-the-mattress trick. One stormy night, there is a knock on the door and there stands a young woman with a basket of fresh veggies. Without a chance to say a word, she is whisked off to a bedroom and placed on the top of 20 mattresses. The little pea recognizes her as its beloved gardener and decides to take action. All night long it whispers into her ear, "There is something Large and Round and very Uncomfortable in the bed under you." The rest is history. This story lacks the zing and energy and cohesiveness of other spoofs such as Jon Scieszka's The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs (Viking, 1989). The gardening touches in the quirky illustrations add an element of fun, but even the queen's carrot nose and pea eyes cannot save the rambling tale. Readers are left hoping for more "inside dirt" than is delivered here.-Wendy Woodfill, Hennepin County Library, Minnetonka, MN (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

At last, the silent participant in the tale of the Princess and the Pea tells its side of the story. Having seen one princess after another come and then, all-too-well-rested, go, the pea decides at last to intervene. Making its way to the top of the pile of mattresses, it whispers into the latest sleeper's ear for three hours that there's a "Large and Round and very Uncomfortable" lump in the bed. Gray decorates the rather cozy-looking palace with vegetable-themed furnishings, and the royals, with their sharp noses and pea-green eyes, resemble carved wooden puppets--in contrast to the relieved Prince's new bride, who (surprise, surprise) turns out to be the fresh-faced young gardener seen working in the background in nearly every previous scene. The pea has eyes but no limbs, which begs the question of just how it made that arduous climb, but makes it easy to track it from pod to palace to final resting place in a museum display case. A rib-tickling US debut for Grey, with plenty of sight gags to complement the chatty narrative. (Picture book/fairy tale. 7-9) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.