The names of the male characters are derogatory, and when a prince does complete her list of complex tasks, instead of marrying him as promised, she turns him into a frog. We believe that books are a great way to raise awareness and improve understanding of different experiences. This booklist aims to provide a range of children's and teens' books that feature characters who are on the autistic spectrum or have Asperger’s Syndrome. Her most famous book is probably Princess Smartypants, a reimagining of the traditional fairytale in which the helpless princess is whisked off her feet by her prince charming. But in Babette Cole’s version, the princess is a fiercely independent woman who is pressured by her parents, the king and the queen, into finding a man. Her attitude is clear from the first line of the book:

My daughter enjoys this book and thinks it’s very funny. She enjoys pretending to be a princess herself, so I like the fact that it gives a more balan... Lesson 4 - Use vocabulary built over the week to write a character description, focusing on choosing interesting adjectives to create expanded noun phrases. Lesson 1 - Introduce the story. Discuss the title, cover, role of author/illustrator, etc. Make predictions throughout. Sequence the key events of the story as a class and then independently. Resources provided to record this in books. Challenge more able students to label their pictures with key words or sentences. Then we reach the ending of the book, which appeals to my feminist nature and provokes all sorts of discussion about the children’s own families: Princess Smartypants doesn’t get married, but she does live happily ever after in a truly modern fairy tale. Most of all, we have a lot of fun. And when we’re done with Princess Smartypants, we move on to Prince Cinders, a pretty weedy-looking royal specimen.I’m no huge fan of Brave. I do know a few little girls who love it to bits, mainly because of the archery. But there’s something not quite right about the story arc, and I feel it’s a bit cheap to play the princes for laughs. Four complete English units of work designed for Year 1 but easily adaptable for Reception or Year 2. Includes lesson powerpoints, differentiated resources and planning documents.

Princess Smartypants is rebellious, fiercely independent and perfectly happy to be single. Clad in dungarees and muddy wellies, she loves caring for her menagerie of unusual pets, including a selection of giant slugs, snails, spiders and dragons. Frustratingly, suitors are forever turning up to win her hand and she is under constant pressure from her parents to smarten up and settle down. What I liked about this story is that it was very unique and not conventional. It depicts a princess in a manner that is not common in pupils’ eyes. When children think of a princess they like to think about someone beautiful and graceful and kind, this princess is none of those things. Babette Cole has been very creative in using humour in this story, e.g. the names of the princes and the name of the princess.

Princess Smartypants is rebellious, independent, and very happy being single - but her parents want her to get married and settle down! This hilarious picture book has a subversive protagonist and a strong message about choosing your own destiny. The possibilities for activities are endless with this fabulous piece of fiction. I love hearing pupils’ ideas for how the princes could complete their crazy tasks - suggestions have included hiring a helicopter to feed the pets and drinking an energy drink before the roller disco. We also create freeze-frames of scenes from the story, take photos and write captions to go with them. Princess Smartypants is an example of a children’s picture book which uses gender reversal to tell a story that would never really happen. What if women of high socio-economic status could choose their own marriage/non-marriage partners? The ending plays into the stereotypically MRA fear — if women were allowed autonomy they may choose not to include men at all.

Gloria Steinem wrote in her 1994 book Moving Beyond Words that she has ‘gained a lot of faith in reversals’ as a way of highlighting structural inequalities and prejudices: It was with Beware of the Vet (1982) that her zany sense of humour and delight in the absurd was first fully unleashed. The account of the mayhem that follows when Mr MacPlaster, the vet, mistakes cow hormones for aspirin and grows horns and a tail was a trailblazer for many of Babette’s subsequent titles. Taking a similar “what if?” premise, The Trouble With Mum (1983) stars a mum who is a witch and focuses on the deep and hilarious embarrassment that this causes at the school gates. It is a simple problem captured brilliantly by Babette in the best tradition of great picture books, by contrasting sparing, deadpan text with frothily inventive illustrations. Reversals] create empathy and are great detectors of bias, in ourselves as well as in others, for they expose injustices that seem normal and so are invisible. In fact, the deeper and less visible the bias, the more helpful it is to take some commonly accepted notion about one race, class, ethnicity, ability — whatever — and see how it sounds when transferred to another. […] To uncover the difference between what is and what could be, we may need the “Aha!” that comes from exchanging subject for object, the flash of recognition that starts with the smile, the moment of changed viewpoint that turns the world upside down. This book seems to be telling girls that they would be better off without a husband and family. Definitely not the message I want to share with my little girls." (From a 1-star review).

Blah blah alternative princess cliche of forgoing marriage as girl empowerment; I think girls who wanna get married will be fine unless this is the only piece of media they ever consume From the lowbrow names of "Prince Pelvis, Swimbladder, Boneshaker, Grovel etc. and the overall disrespectful, non-familial attitudes to the man-hating, lying, deal breaking princess this book was feminist rubbish from top to bottom." (From a 1-star review) Choose one of the challenges that a prince was set. Write about it in more detail to explain what happened to the prince. The big struggle scenes comprise a large proportion of a picturebook, and sure enough the princes are put through a series of tasks which involve her scary pets or scary rides.