by Jean Reidy, Illustrated by Genevieve Leloup
Bloomsbury Kids, $12.99, 32 pages

Too Princessy! is a bedtime story that might be the choice of an adult hoping to make a fast getaway. It is a story of a bored child finding everything to be too something, and that something ends with the letter “y”. The book is illustrated in a scrapbook style, with simple drawings full of “too doodly” textures. A book this short lends itself to analysis as readily as to review. The story consists of 55 words, 24 of which are “too” and 7 of which are made up. The story line and the illustrations seem to be mismatched. The activities, such as making a scrapbook or stargazing, are a bit advanced conceptually for children with language skills at the level of two-word sentences. Many of the words, such as “circusy,” are not suitable for the very beginning reader trying to learn phonics. Some words that are amenable to phonetic analysis have letters with different colors or textures, which discourages looking at how the letter sounds form words. All things considered, this book is simply not a competitive value in comparison with other books written for the same age group.

Reviewed by Brenda Searle

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