The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Bateman, Teresa

The Princesses Have a Ball

32 pp. | Whitman | September, 2002 | Trade ISBN 0-8075-6626-8 $$15.95

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Lynne Cravath. When a king notices that his twelve daughters' shoes are in tatters, cobbler Jack discovers that the princesses spend their nights playing basketball. So Jack "design[s] a shoe / with a rubber sole" and encourages the princesses to come clean to their dad. In this inspired and sturdy update, Bateman's bouncing, bounding rhymes are taut and economical, and Cravath's cartoony images contain witty modern details.

Reviewer: Nell Beram | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2003