View source for I Want a Sister (Little Princess) by Tony Ross

{{infobox2
|title=I Want a Sister (Little Princess)
|author=Tony Ross
|reviewer=Magda Healey
|genre=For Sharing
|summary= When Queen anounces that a baby is on the way, Little Royal Rascal is very determined to get a sister: boys are smelly and have all wrong toys. Another great picture book in the hugely popular series, it has excellent funny pictures and deals with subjects important for every toddler expecting a sibling.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=32
|publisher=Harper Collins Children's Books
|date=June 2007
|isbn=978-0007242818
|aznuk=0007242816
|aznus=1842701037
|cover=0007242816 
}}
Tony Ross' ''Little Princess'' series is over 10 years old - and now has her own TV cartoon series too. HarperCollinsChildren's Books are reissuing two of the books, this one and ''I Want My Dummy''.

To the uninitiated, the whole series features a cheeky and indeed rather
troublesome little Princess and each of the books concerns one toddler's
rite of passage, from getting rid of the dummy to potty training to arrival
of a new baby in the family.

Tony Ross is a cartoonist and, very appropraitely for toddler books, the
Princesses are very much picture books, with text limited to few lines of
narration/dailogue. I always found that I had to add bits to text provided
in the books, but then most parents reading to toddlers would anyway, so
it's not really an issue.

The attractivness of the series lies firmly in the pictures, though: they
are very much caricature-type cartoons; with a style located somewhere
between vicious satire and drawings of a 4 year old, and not at all pretty.
In fact, most if not all of the creatures are gloriously, triumphantly ugly.
The princess (as well as the King and the Queen) wears a crown but apart
from that, just a baggy white gown, while the Queen, very realistically,
goes to the hospital to have a baby in a flowery maternity dress and
plimsols. There is a lot of pictorial humour in the books, and a lot of it
would not be accessible for an average toddler or preschooler, but will
provide a welcome distraction to a parent reading them, while there is also
plenty of detail that would appeal to the little 'uns. The complete lack of
concessions towards prettiness is to be welcomed, especially in connection
with princesses, in the sea of Watchtower-joins-Disney styled girly
productions that abound.

The princess herself is a cheeky, stubborn girl determined to get her way,
with a tendency to screaming tantrums and stamping her feet. She is, in
other words, very reminiscent of a typical toddler and the Royal Household
is nothing like a family, with parents, the Admiral and the Prime Minister
(grandpa and uncle perhaps?) and so on. All the books are very aptly titled
on the variation of ''I Want...'' : delaying gratification and
reconciling desires with reality are, indeed, major developmental tasks that
children have to accomplish from toddlerhood onwards. It takes time (some
never completely manage) and a lot tantrums to grow up even a little bit:
''The Little Princess'' books accompany the children on that painful
road.

In '' I Want A Sister'', the royal family is about to grow. Little
Princess is rather excited about that, but also determined that the new baby
is to be - HAS to be - a girl. After all, boys smell and have all the wrong
toys. If it's a brother, she'll put him in the dustbin! It's not hard to
guess the outcome, and Princess' reaction is this time a big girl's one:
without any attempts at dustbin-throwing, she falls for her baby brother (at
least for the time being).

It's an ideal book for any small child in a family expecting a baby: it
acknowledges all those very negative feelings a child might have about the
new arrival, it deals with accompanying anxieties in a humorous, positive
way while reinforcing the idea that any child is special and unique to the
parents. I think there is a slight mismatch between the typical target age
of '' I Want A Sister'', which I see as somewhere between 2 and 3.5 and
the main reason for Princess' huffing and puffing: it's bit later that the
intense separation of the sexes kicks in. My 5 year old was, indeed, rather
disappointed about having a baby brother (especially when she envisaged
having a toddler, or a bigger-boy brother) but I don't think she would have
been bothered much at 3 years old; although with the marketers reinforcing
this gender split earlier and earlier (it's almost impossible to get gender
neutral clothes, especially cheap ones, above the age of about 3 months) it
might be moving to an earlier and earlier age.

''I Want a Sister'' comes highly recommended, both for ''The Little
Princess'' fans and for all small children whose families are expecting or
just have had a baby: these should buy it. Other young readers aged 2 to
about 3.5 might also enjoy it for its irrepressible good humour and a
slightly anarchic spirit, although, like all books dealing with the everyday
(even in a imaginative setting) it will not particularly appeal to children
who prefer fantasy, magic or animal adventure stories: those would be better
borrowing it.

We'd like to thank the publishers for sending both books to The Bookbag.  We also have a review of [[I Feel Sick! (Little Princess) by Tony Ross]].

''I Want My Dummy'' is another Tony Ross book from the Little Princess series for toddlers dealing with another aspect of growing up.

[[That's Not Funny]] is a book with brilliant,
modern graphic style when a truly naughty child getting his comeuppance,
for ages slightly higher than the Princess series. [[It Was You, Blue Kangaroo!]] also has a lesson
learned by a very determined little girl.

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