There was some stretch of months back in kindergarten when my now second grader donned a less-than-nice-to-hear tone to belittle his peers’ game—if this was even its true name—pretty, pretty princess. Let’s just say that my guy had no time for the pretty or the princess. As far as I could tell by his occasional snippets of description about the phenomenon (“all the girls play it, plus a couple of the boys,”) pretty, pretty princess was basically one of those kindergarten staples, a chase game.
Had someone come to observe kindergarten that year and been asked which two boys might like playing pretty, pretty princess they’d have bet on my extremely longhaired boy. Well, if they’d even realized he was a he that is. Looks can be deceiving.
Despite Peggy Orenstein’s compelling warning that Disney Princesses are poised to overtake girlhood—and possibly the world—or maybe because the Disney Princess has such a death grip on modern day girlhood, there’s some pretty great pushback these days. Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple’s Not All Princesses Dress in Pink is a perfect example of pinkbusting. You think princess equals pink, pretty and waiting for a prince? Think again.
In real life, Heidi’s daughter is in high school now and from forever she has pursued a ballerina dream without becoming subsumed by all things pink and pretty. Heidi knows my kids, too and she thought I’d better read her new book to Saskia (don’t you love when that happens?).
She was oh so right.
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The princess girls in Not All Princesses Dress in Pink play soccer and roll in the mud and fix things. They dance all different ways, including foxtrot and hip-hop. They fight imaginary knights (Saskia cannot for the life of her figure out what the girl’s doing with the sword on the page for princess as knight). They ride bicycles; they wear shoes that help them do stuff rather than simply teeter fashionably in heels and they eat messily with panache.
The princesses in the book remind me of the real princesses I know these days: Saskia’s pals—boys and girls—are dressing up at school in all shades of pink and then doing whatever they want in their classroom, from painting to climbing to reading to playing with dolls and listening to stories on tape (picture princess in giant old headphones circa 1970). At home, Saskia and her costume-clad pal Arella sit in their twirl-able prettiness and build Duplo towers. We are all about mixing it up.
Sure, in our household—and in our corner of the world—there’s a lot of support for mixing it up. And yet, there’s always a need for more books to back up a world that isn’t like the popular culture’s prevailing vision of the way the world works.
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Quick digression: my absolute favorite illustration in the book features a pumpkin patch, a princess-y carriage and a pick-up truck. It’s Western-Massachusetts’-autumn-meets-fairy-tale-land.
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Perhaps, that image encapsulates what I love about this book’s sensibility: the world of these princess girls in sparkly crowns is the real deal and not a commercially driven one or even a fairy tale driven one. They are busy playing. They are busy hanging out. They are busy being friends.
They are not obsessing about pink. In fact, they are not obsessing about any particular color, not really, not metaphorically.
Whether Saskia tumbles or twirls or kicks balls or digs holes, I want for her to do those things because she’s having fun doing them. I do not want her to worry about her color scheme.
*Reluctantly, because we are so enjoying this book I’m going to give this signed (!) copy away! All you need to is to leave a comment. Maybe you have a princess anecdote or a pink anecdote or a pumpkin patch story. Maybe you want to say something about kids’ playing or gender identity forming.
