Princess Penelope's Parrot - Hardcover

Helen Lester and Lynn Munsinger have been together through thick and thin since first publishing The Wizard, the Fairy, and the Magic Chicken in 1983. They have collaborated on the hilarious Tacky the Penguin series and many other wildly funny and popular titles, including the award-winning Hooway for Wodney Wat. Helen Lester is a full-time writer who makes her home in Pawling, New York, and Lynn Munsinger is a full-time illustrator living in Massachusetts.

Ages 4^-6. Accustomed to getting everything she wants, a bossy, selfish princess receives a well-deserved comeuppance when she wages verbal warfare on a small green parrot. "KNOTHEAD . . . STUPID BUZZARD . . . Speak, or I'll rattle your cage," she rages, continuing to intimidate and insult until her attention is claimed by the arrival of wealthy Prince Percival. Ah, the boundless riches that will be hers if she plays her cards right--precious silks, velvet pillows, a 20-foot TV. Little does she know that the uncooperative bird she has dismissed isn't really a "BIRDBRAIN" after all. Grown-ups will know right where Lester is headed with the story; so will lots of kids, who have been told over and over not to call names or to bully. But the comical overlay makes the obvious message go down easily, and Munsinger's vibrant, expressive watercolors give both bird and human so much vigor and personality it will be hard to keep from laughing out loud. Stephanie Zvirin