When two out of three of your kids are girls, you know you can’t escape the whole fascination with princesses. My three-year-old’s day revolves around princesses. She likes to dress like one, play princess games and of course read princess stories. My seven-year-old would like you to think she’s outgrown the whole princess phase but she is still fascinated by them. One of the many princess books we’ve read in our house lately is Barefoot Books The Real Princess, A Mathemagical Tale (age 4-9). The book is written by Brenda Williams and illustrated by Sophie Fatus and as this books also comes with a story time CD, Juliet Stevenson narrates the audio portion.

Based on the Princess and the Pea story, the Queen wants to help her three sons, Primo, Secundo, and Terzo, find wives, REAL Princesses. The King has his counting house, with three bags of gold, one for each Prince when he marries. The Queen has her own counting house too, where she kept nine golden peas with a magical power only she knows about. A Princess arrives one stormy night but fails the Queens golden pea test. Another stormy night a second princess arrives but also fails the Queen’s test. Disappointed, the Queen worries her oldest son will never find a real Princess, until Princess Geometria arrives.

The Real Princess, A Mathemagical Tale is a wonderful retelling of the Princess and the Pea story with a delightful twist. The story incorporates seamlessly number recognition and counting. Kids will love counting along with the stories: 1 butler, 2 footmen, 3 maids and so on. The numbers are written in numeric form making it easy for kids to recognize them in the story. The back of the book also includes some additional story questions to encourage kids to look and count or remember from the story. The illustrations fill the pages will the familiar hand painted style seen in many of Barefoot Books.

The story on it’s own is wonderful to read but as an added benefit, you receive a CD with the story narrated by British Actress Juliet Stevenson. I love her voice; it seems so fitting for this royal story. And she does a great job with funny voices making it wonderful to listen too. There are two options on the CD: You can just listen to the story or you can listen and follow along in the book. The second audio track has chimes to indicate when to turn the page.

Of course any story with Princesses is going to be a hit with my kids. My oldest daughter who loves math enjoyed the number aspect and the questions at the end of the story. My youngest loved counting along. The Real Princess, A Mathemagical Tale is both a pleasure to read and listen to.

The Real Princess, A Mathemagical Tale

written by Brenda Williams/illustrated by Sophie Fatus

CD narration by Juliet Stevenson

age 4-9

soft cover

Barefoot Books

Carrie Anne Badov, a mother of three wee ones, has a love of children’s literature that extends beyond her mothering years, back to when she would remove pages from books and insert her own stories as a child. She continues to write her own stories in the hopes of seeing one of them published but in the meantime she loves to read and review great children’s books. She’s the Managing Editor and Review Editor at EverythingMom.com and publishes more children’s book reviews every Wednesday on her blog Another Day. Another though…or two as part of her weekly Write a Review Wednesday post.