Author(s): Leah Marinsky Sharpe
Format: Hardback
No. of Pages: 32
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Language: English
Date Published: 2009-10-01
Dimensions: 205.74 x 256.54 x 17.78mm
Publication City/Country: Boston, MA, United States
Edition:
Illustrations: Illustrations, color

Like many good fables, this story opens with a foundling left rather inconveniently, if not surprisingly in the woods. A large lizard, ever conscious of tripping hazards, picks up the infant and takes her home, where she soon grows into a pretty, pampered, and generally useless young woman named Isabella. Despite her adoptive mother's efforts (for the lizard is really a witch in disguise) to shape her up, the girl prefers the alluring life offered her by the charming Prince Rupert, a world of cooks and servants, palaces and jewels, luxury and indolence. Luckily, the lizard woman is a canny, concerned parent. She does not suffer fools lightly and is not about to let her daughter's too-easy transition to palace life go unchallenged. And so she arranges a surprise transformation for her daughter one that puts the prince's marital plans on hold and gives the witch just enough time to hammer home a few lessons about the downside of idleness.