I’ve had Patricia Von Pleasantsquirrel by James Proimos for quite sometime. It’s been one we’ve read in spurts since kiddo had the physical ability to hand me books from a stack – so, yeah, quite awhile. My inner monolog while I read it aloud it always pretty much the same. So, naturally, I thought I had reviewed this book for my Weekly Low Down on Kids Books series. Apparently, I hadn’t. Or, I just really stink at using my own search feature.
Anyway, we read it tonight, and I wanted to be sure I shared this with the world.
Patricia Von Pleasantsquirrel is a snotty little girl that thinks she’s supposed to be queen of everything. Her mother won’t let her stay up past midnight, her dad won’t let her eat cake before dinner, her baby brother has the audacity to act like a baby instead of be her servant, and her dog has the bigger audacity to be a dog instead of being a great white stallion. She is one who suffers from the great illness of entitlement, when she hasn’t done a darn thing to earn any titles.
In front of my moatless cottage before it broke in half.
“Patricia was certain that a one-level, three-bedroom, moatless cottage was no place for royalty.”
Part of me wants to say, “No kidding, sister.” The other part of me says, “Hey! I love this one-level, three-bedroom, moatless cottage that’s literally falling apart at the seems…” Oh, we’re not actually talking about MY house…
So then, in protest to a life that is not exactly what she’s dreamed, Patricia puts on her frilliest dress, takes out all her books, and settles on one…
If you haven’t felt the familiar tingle of a child who has “made mischief of one kind and another,” we can spell it out for you – as Proimos does. Patricia decides to read Where the Wild Things Are.
This is the point in the book when I gently close it and actually pick up the Caldecott winning children’s book by Maurice Sendak. This is where we jump into Max’s adventure… we roar with beast… we gnash our terrible teeth… and come back home to settle into Patricia’s story.
Where Patricia thinks:
“If a silly boy with no social graces could be made king with no effort at all, then imagine how easy it would be for me to find my princessdom.”
I won’t give away her whole story. I won’t riddle this review with spoilers. But I will say, my favorite parts include two jelly beans named Edith Wharton and Louisa May Alcott as well as a hippo named Elvis.
The only thing that could make this reading experience more complete would be if I finally bought a copy of The Giving Tree. Maybe then, kiddo and I could read it to our non-existent fish and after a long discussion decide we have no idea what it is really about.
