Author(s): Mary Jane Auch

Picture Books

The latest of Mary Jane Auch's (Bantam of the Opera) fairy-tale parodies finds Paulina the Princess competing against her peers for the hand of Prince Drupert, the sorry-looking son of overbearing Queen Zelda. Paulina knows the old pea-in-the-mattress trick ("That's so once-upon-a-time," she scoffs to herself) and is unintimidated by the other two finalists, a princess with a very long braid and another princess accompanied by seven little men. But the kitchen assignment comes close to defeating her until, in despair, she whips up a mess of tomatoes, cheese and garlic on some bread dough, wowing Queen Zelda. In a gratifying final twist, Paulina rejects the prince and opens her own successful business a pizza parlor, of course. Readers will delight in the sly references to other fairy tales and in the goofy visuals (e.g., with a sardonic grin, a Rapunzel-like princess uses her very long braid to trip Paulina). The illustrations, representing the wife-and-husband team's first picture-book collaboration, resemble those in Mary Jane Auch's previous works they are just as witty yet considerably more detailed. This sassy send-up seems likely to deliver a royal case of the giggles.