Humphrey, Albert, and the Flying Machine
Kindergarten-Grade 2–Humphrey and Albert, 10 and 8 respectively, do not want to go to Princess Briar Rose's birthday party, fearing it will be–their favorite word–boring. Things look more promising when the evil fairy appears, but then the curse kicks in and they fall asleep for the requisite 100 years. The boys wake up three weeks early, however, and go hunting for a handsome prince to kiss the princess and break the spell. When they hack their way through the nettles surrounding the castle, they encounter the scientist and inventor Daniel Bernoulli, hard at work on a flying machine. With the boys' assistance, he completes the plane, flies over the nettles, and kisses the princess. Although he is not handsome, she imagines his mind, and "in that mind she saw beauty, and in his eyes she saw love." An appended author's note attempts to clear up the confusion created by the text regarding the real Bernoulli and his genuine accomplishments. This is an uncomfortable blend of reality and fantasy that simply doesn't work and will leave children with no clue as to who "this prince of science" was or why he was important. Manders's frenetic watercolor, gouache, and pencil cartoons are comic but rely so heavily on shades of brown that details often blur together. Debbie Dadey'sShooting Star: AnnieOakley(Walker, 1997) and Diane Stanley'sRumpelstiltskin's Daughter(HarperCollins, 1997) offer more satisfying mixes of fact and fancy.–Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.