Book Review | Don’t Call Me Princess by Kate Evans  

By Ruby Fischer

DON’T Call Me Princess is a funny, gutsy and hugely relatable retelling of all the gruesome fairy tales we’ve cherished for so long. But this time the princes are prickly, slobbering buffoons in tights, chasing after incredulous princesses who choose not to trade their fins for feet.

Author and cartoonist Kate Evans bases the story’s narrator on her own daughter, now at the “good critical age” of seven. She reads to us from her
book of fairy tales, scoffing along to every “happily ever after” before thinking up her own, infinitely more satisfying narratives. In her imagination,
the princess finds the pea, dumps the dwarves and abseils down the scary tower in a dress that accentuates her biceps. It’s a book that will delight young girls everywhere, but, as Evans points out, it probably won’t make for
a calming bed-time read.

“We’re currently part of the #MeToo generation,” Evans has said. “I’d like to raise the #DoesntHappenToUsAnyMore generation” – and this is certainly a propitious start. For anyone fed up with frogs and sunsets, Don’t Call Me Princess will be a house-hold favourite.

■ Don’t Call Me Princess by
Kate Evans is published by New
Internationalist, price £9.99