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Summary
Summary
When an older sibling with a flair for the dramatic shares her kingdom with a baby tyrant, can there be a happily ever after?
Once upon a time there was a happy family: A mom, a dad, a gerbil, and the most beautifulest, cleverest, ever so kindest Princess. . . .
On one horrible day, a new ruler is born into a young princess's family -- a ruler she dubs His Royal Highness, King Baby. This small interloper is so smelly. He is so noisy. And all the talk in the Land is about him ("Such a nice burp!" "Oh, what a lovely poo-poo!"), nonstop, ALL THE TIME! Has there ever been such an era of wicked rule? With whimsy and sympathy, Sally Lloyd-Jones tells a satisfying tale of usurped attention -- and rapprochement -- that every big brother or sister will relate to, while illustrator David Roberts captures all the hilarious details of a child's active imagination.
Author Notes
Sally Lloyd-Jones is the author of several children's books, including Skip to the Loo, My Darling! A Potty Book and How to Be a Baby . . . by Me, the Big Sister, which was a New York Times bestseller. Sally Lloyd-Jones lives in New York City.
David Roberts is the illustrator of many books for children, including The Dunderheads, written by Paul Fleischman, which was short-listed for the Kate Greenaway Medal; The Dumpster Diver, written by Janet S. Wong; and several acclaimed titles by Andrea Beaty, including Rosie Revere, Engineer and Ada Twist, Scientist . Born in Liverpool, he now lives in London.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This displacement-themed fairy tale spoof is funny from the very first page, when Lloyd-Jones (Baby Wren and the Great Gift) introduces her fantasizing heroine as "the most beautifulest, cleverest, ever-so-kindest Princess with long, flowing wondrous hair," and Roberts (Ada Twist, Scientist) shows her wearing yellow tights on her head in an approximation of golden tresses. But happily-ever-after goes out the window with the arrival of a smelly, attention-grabbing baby brother, aka King Baby. As the girl bemoans her fate in storybook-style narration, the sly pen-and-watercolor pictures provide delicious comic counterpoint, from the 1970s-retro detailing (a wicker peacock chair stands in as throne) to panel sequences that mirror Roberts's crisp images with crayon-scrawled ones that reflect the girl's version of events. It takes the meltdown of King Baby at his first birthday party to trigger two epiphanies: she has magical powers to soothe him, and l'état, c'est moi can be true of brother-sister rulers. Comparisons to Kate Beaton's King Baby and Marla Frazee's The Boss Baby are natural, but Lloyd-Jones and Roberts's satire stands on its own. Ages 4-8. Author's agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown. Illustrator's agency: Artist Partners. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Once upon a time, there was a Happy Family consisting of a mother, father, daughter (shown with tights on her head simulating long, blonde, princess-y hair), and pet gerbil. Life was grand until one horrible, NOT NICE day, when a new ruler was born. The newly minted big sister describes, in a classic-fairy-tale narrative style, the havoc wreaked by her demanding baby brother. Even better, she draws the story as she sees it, in entertaining childlike illustrations that mirror--and sometimes humorously deviate from--Robertss watercolor and pen art showing the books true events. (Though Roberts, too, gets cheeky with his imagery--see the picture of King Baby as Louis XIV.) The stylish illustrations situate the story in the 1960s/1970s, with bellbottoms and groovy patterns and prams and wicker chairs; this combined with the authors and illustrators dedications (respectively: To Sin, my baby sister and For my mum and her baby brother) points to the possibility that the tale is at least semi-autobiographical. And while its true that a new baby can be a royal pain in the bum, the princess eventually learns that having a doting little playmate has its benefits. Pair with Kate Beatons King Baby (rev. 9/16; no relation). elissa gershowitz (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A big sister's nose is out of joint when her baby brother arrives and makes a royal mess of what she regarded as her once-ideal life. First-person text establishes "the most beautifulest, cleverest, ever-so-kindest Princess with long, flowing wondrous hair" as the narrator of this new-baby story. Illustrations amplify the flowery text's humor by depicting the white girl with bobbed hair and wearing a pair of yellow tights on her head to emulate Rapunzel-like locks. After King Baby, who is also white though initially hairless, arrives, parallel series of panel illustrations, one rendered in the cartoon style of the main book, the other in a nave style that suggests a child's hand, detail the ways that the baby disrupts her happy life with his pooping, burping, attention-hogging ways. The worst arrives with his first birthday, which she decides to interrupt "disguised as a Mysterious Fairy, with a magic wand, a big very magical nose, and a cunning plan." But before she can put her plan into action, the baby is overwhelmed by the party guests' singing and attention and begins to cry. Who can soothe him? Only his big sister, of course. She's now a "Kind Fairy [whose] loveliness had grown even stronger (like a sparkling mountain stream)." And, yes, following this act of sisterly kindness, "They Lived Happily Ever AfterTHE END." A royal serving of fun for the new-baby shelf. (Picture book. 3-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Once upon a time, there was a Happy Family: a mom, a dad, a gerbil, and the most beautifulest, cleverest, ever-so-kindest Princess. All is well for this princess, who spends her days with her parents in her cozy house, generally being the center of attention. But like all fairy tales, there's a villain, and in the princess' story, it's an unwelcome intruder: His Royal Highness, King Baby! All of a sudden, big sister has been supplanted by a noisome little brother, and her parents seem to have no time for her at all: the gentle girl (lovely in all her ways) had to cook her own breakfast ALONE BY HERSELF like a poor orphan child. Roberts' lively mixed-media illustrations humorously play out the sister's exaggerated version of the events, from the deeply expressive faces to the dense compositions packed with comical details. The sibling rivalry transforms into adoration, however, when big sis is the only one who can calm King Baby's birthday tantrum. Many older siblings will relate to this uproarious tale of new-baby mayhem.--Lock, Anita Copyright 2017 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
He's bad all right. Never washes his hands. Lies "about pointless stuff." Cuts in line! But the antihero of this inspired collaboration between John ("All My Friends Are Dead") and Oswald ("Mingo the Flamingo") has a fascinating back story, involving a happy childhood on a sunflower, a terrifying incident at a ballpark that sent him to the dark side and years of delinquency before he decides to reform. This is kid-book humor at its best, both warmhearted and frisky - the kind that leaves adults, too, cracking up and grateful. BIZZY MIZ LIZZIE Written and illustrated by David Shannon. 40 pp. Scholastic. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) We all know a Lizzie, the high-flying young bee who kills it in school and pursues dance, acting, art and baseball, plus Honey Scouts. She wants to win the spelling bee and meet the Queen, but conks out. Visiting her lazy friend Daizy, who hangs out smelling flowers, Lizzie encounters the Queen -who's "busy doing nothing." With his livewire lines and fervent brush strokes, Shannon ("No, David") specializes in making manic kids like Lizzie sympathetic. There's a gentle sting instead for adults who overschedule their little achievers. HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS KING BABY By Sally Lloyd-Jones. Illustrated by David Roberts. 48 pp. Candlewick. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 7) Has there ever been a baby as wicked as this one? Lloyd-Jones ("How to Be a Baby ... by Me, the Big Sister") and Roberts ("Rosie Revere, Engineer") take the baby-as-royal-tyrant trope out for an exhilarating spin. A new big sister - a "cruelly mistreated Princess" with "long, flowing wondrous hair" that looks a lot like yellow tights - refuses to roll over when her new sibling sucks up all the attention. The Princess's histrionic crayon drawings of the goings-on accompany delightfully detailed tableaus of life in a baby-mad family. ACCIDENT! Written and illustrated by Andrea Tsurumi. 48 pp. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 7) There are kids who seem to court trouble, and there are kids who live in fear of doing anything even vaguely wrong. Those junior catastrophizers populate this groovy debut, in which a bug-eyed armadillo named Lola sets off a raucous chain of events when she knocks over a pitcher of fruit punch. Mortified, she flees to the library, planning to hide there "till I'm a grownup." En route she's joined by creatures escaping their own disasters. The action is largely in the thickly detailed images, lending an updated Richard Scarry-style vibe. THE SCREAMING CHEF By Peter Ackerman. Illustrated by Max Dalton. 32 pp. David R. Godine. $17.95. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) In a stylish world of midcentury modern décor, a boy screams nonstop. His parents are out of ideas. Realizing he never shrieks when he eats, they cook him amazing food, but he grows huge. Soon he's cooking himself and opens a fancy restaurant. The customers flock, but his frustration rises. The screaming starts again, until he adds singing to his repertoire. Ackerman and Dalton ("The Lonely Phone Booth") have cooked up something witty and, as an example of the parental art of redirecting, perhaps inadvertently wise. ONLINE An expanded visual presentation of this week's column is at nytimes.com/books.