Snoring Beauty

 

 Picture Book # 8

          AUTHOR: Bruce Hale

         TITLE: Snoring Beauty

ILLUSTRATOR: Howard Fine

GENRE: Fiction Fairy Tale Picture Book

          PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CHARACTERS: 

          Princess Marge, Queen Esophagus and King Gluteus

DATE OF PUBLICATION: 2008.  Harcourt Children's Books. 

This fractured fairy tale is a modern take on the famous story of Sleeping Beauty.This charming tale is narrated by a frog in a feathered chapeau and cape!  A baby girl called Drachmina Lofresca Malvolio Margarine (Marge for short) has been born to King Gluteus and Queen Esophagus.  Don’t you just LOVE the names? Princess Marge has been cursed by the wicked fairy Beebo. The curse said that on the day Princess Marge turned 16 she would be run over by a pie wagon and die. King Gluteus banished all pie wagons and pies from the Kingdom.  He even went so far as to banish mud pies!!  The fairy Tintinnitus changed the evil spell somewhat.  Instead of Marge dying, she would turn into a dragon and go into a deep sleep until a quince awakens her. Well, that day came and as was predicted Marge turns into a dragon, a purple dragon with red lips and quite the snore!  Travelers come from all around trying to wake the sleeping princess, but will it work or will she never wake from the everlasting sleep?  You’ll have to read the book to find out!  I think this is a great book to read aloud to your children or students.  The book is filled with puns and onomatopoeia.  A great lesson would be for the children to pick out all of the “sound effect” words.