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Summary
Summary
One day, while holding her treasured baseball mitt, Kate makes a wish. And poof! -- she turns into a princess in a fairy tale. But being a princess isn't at all what Kate imagined. Before long, she's fighting off dragons, entertaining witches, and teaching the ladies-in-waiting how to play baseball. With Kate around, fairy tale land will never be the same again!
Author Notes
Author Anna Quindlen was born in Philadelphia on July 8, 1953. She graduated from Barnard in 1974 and serves on their Board of Trustees.
Quindlen worked as a reporter for the New York Post and the New York Times and wrote columns for the Times. She won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary before devoting herself to writing fiction.
She has written both adult fiction (including Object Lessons, Black and Blue and One True Thing, which was made into a motion picture starring Meryl Streep) and children's fiction (Happily Ever After and The Tree That Came to Stay). Her title Alternate Side made the bestseller list in 2018.
Currently, she is a columnist at Newsweek. Her title Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake made The New York Times Best Seller list for 2012. (Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-4Kate is a fourth grader who plays shortstop for her Little League team and runs faster than anyone in her class. She also loves fairy tales. One day while reading with her Aunt Mary's "very special" baseball mitt under her pillow, Kate wishes she were a princess and is granted her wish. However, she discovers quickly that being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be: the handsome prince is rather wimpy and castle life is boring. After saving herself from the requisite dragon, witch, and black knight, Kate teaches the Ladies-in-Waiting and serving maids to play baseball and then happily returns to the present. The clever text is short and simple, subtly contrasting the different roles of a girl growing up in medieval and modern times. Kate is an insouciant and likable heroine, brought to life admirably by Stevenson's humorous illustrations. The theme is no longer new, but this is a lively and entertaining treatment.Judith Constantinides, East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library, LA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Quindlen's breezy, farcical romp centers on a tomboy who loves reading fairy tales when she's not on the Little League field. When a magical baseball mitt unexpectedly grants Kate's wish to "try being a princess sometime," she suddenly finds herself sitting in a stone tower, wearing a pink dress "that laced up the front like a sneaker" and a jeweled crown. Wreaking playful havoc with stock fairytale characters and clichés, Quindlen has Kate eluding the advances of a lovestruck suitor who sings "some song about picking roses and watching beauty fade" as he ignores the approach of first an enemy knight and then a dragon (Kate fends off both). Later, the prince leaves Kate to be captured by a witch and her troll sidekick, who just want Kate to teach them some games ("We only kidnap all of you [princesses] because we're so lonely out here," they confess). Stevenson limns the proceedings in thin black-and-white cartoons of armored knights on horseback, turreted castles and bemused royals and courtiers. While this isn't an especially weighty effort, the collision between the tale's make-believe sensibility and the heroine's down-to-earth, '90s attitude and jargon results in an appealingly glib prose style that's neatly tailored to kids. Ages 7-10. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
In this short, breezy fantasy Kate's wish to be a fairy-tale princess is granted, but she finds that playing baseball and solving her own problems are much more satisfying than sitting around in a dress being pampered. Comic scenes, illustrated with Stevenson's agile black-and-white sketches, imagine how an athletic, strong-minded, modern-day damsel might react in classic fairy-tale situations. From HORN BOOK 1997, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Quindlen (for adults, One True Thing, 1994, etc.) bows with this literary confection slightly reminiscent of Jay Williams's feminist fairy tales. Kate, a star Little League shortstop, makes a wish to be a princess, unaware that the baseball glove she wishes on is magic. She abruptly finds herself dressed in uncomfortable clothes, sitting in the top room of a stone tower as men in metal suits clash outside. After wounding the ego of an inept prince by helping him vanquish a Black Knight and a dragon, Kate befriends a lonely witch, makes her way to the local castle to teach the serving maids and ladies-in-waiting how to play ball, then wishes herself back home. As a jock with a fondness for fairy tales, Kate makes a refreshing protagonist, but she is more affected by homesickness than by the creatures and situations she encounters. The other characters are cardboard, especially the men, who are either stuffy or clueless. Some amusing twists don't conceal the tale's essential thinness. (b&w illustrations, not seen) (Fiction. 7-9)
Booklist Review
Gr. 2^-4, younger for reading aloud. Quindlen adds a lively entry to the popular 1990s genre of feminist fractured fairy tales. "I rescued myself!" It's a magic baseball mitt that transforms fourth-grader Kate into a princess in a medieval castle. Then the tomboy discovers she is supposed to spend her time watching from windows, sewing tapestries, and listening to the prince sing boring love songs. Instead, Kate slits her long skirt, helps slay the dragon, teaches the witch and the troll to play jacks and "tic-tack toe," and sets up a baseball game between the maids and the ladies-in-waiting. Much of the fun is in the contemporary parody of the age of chivalry ("Princess, schmincess--in baseball, effort is what counts"), and Stevenson's line-and-watercolor illustrations combine the laid-back, the silly, and the wild. --Hazel Rochman
