The Princess Knight

In the fairy tales of old, if a king organised a joust to decide a suitable partner for his daughter, she would be more than pleased to accept the outcome. Not so in this feminist rewrite. Princess Violetta abides by the terms of the joust but gains the right to decide her own fate by herself appearing as a mysterious black knight and, in time honoured style, defeating everyone. It's not an original idea. Older readers may remember All the King's Horses, a Michael Foreman picture book on a similar theme from 20 years ago. Foreman's princess was tall and muscled, wrestling her hapless suitors out of the ring. In contrast, Violetta is small but determined, crafty and agile. While Foreman's tale was all action and big gestures, Funke's tale is wry and affectionate, finding some sympathy even for foolish and arrogant males. Meyer's illustrations are pale and detailed, full of incidental humour, often using the whole width of the double page in two or three narrow bands to create smaller narratives for the reader to discover within the story. The highest compliment that can be paid to Anthea Bell's translation from the German original is to say that if she hadn't received her credit on the title page, then no one would have known.